


Linked

by JCapasso



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:42:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 48,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24851749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: Elena can't get the taste of Damon's blood out of her head, even if he was threatening to kill and turn her at the time, so she proposes an experiment and gets far more than she bargained for.Dub-con? Sort of? Maybe?
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 26
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

It had been almost a week since Damon had forced his blood down her throat and threatened to kill her and she couldn’t get it out of her head. It wasn’t because she blamed him for it, because she didn’t. She remembered the desperate look in his eyes as he all but begged her to tell him the truth. Not only had she looked him in the eye and lied to him, but then she had the nerve to lecture him about being more trusting. The final nail in her coffin was, ironically, the opening of one. The full betrayal. She would never forget the crushing guilt she felt when he told her that, while he expected as much of Stefan, he had thought better of her. He had placed his obviously fragile trust in her and she had stomped on it like it was nothing. No, she didn’t blame him in the slightest. She had made her own bed there. 

There was a very different reason she couldn’t get it out of her head. The taste of his blood. Her mind had been addled by so much fear that she hadn’t been able to help fighting against it, but the taste had been intoxicating. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was just the adrenaline messing with her perceptions though, and she wanted so badly to find out. She knew that Stefan would never allow it, even if Damon would, which was why she was trying so hard to forget about the whole thing, but it wouldn’t go away. Finally, she came to a conclusion. She had to at least try. 

She knew that Stefan was away for the weekend which meant that she wouldn’t get a better shot at this. She just needed to see. Just once. She headed to the Salvatore house and pulled the bell. When no one came to the door after a minute, she pulled it one more time. Maybe Damon wasn’t home either. Just as she was about to give up and leave, Damon opened the door and Elena winced at the sight of him. He was obviously drunk and looked a mess. She felt horrible for forgetting for a moment what he was going through right now. 

“Stefan’s not here,” he told her shortly. 

“I know,” Elena said, starting to second guess her idea, but plowed ahead anyway. “I actually came to talk to you.”

“Oh?” Damon raised an eyebrow. “In that case…” he opened the door wider and led her to the living room. “Drink?” he offered. 

“No thanks,” she shook her head. “N-not of that anyway,” she bit her lip nervously as she inched towards the subject she was here to bring up. 

“Then what would you like to drink?” he asked curiously. “Keeping in mind that we’re vampires and don’t keep the best selection of non-alcoholic beverages.”

She took a deep breath for courage as she sat down on the couch and said, “I’ll give you some of mine if you give me some of yours?”

“I’m really not in the mood for riddles today, Elena. Some what?” Damon said wearily, sitting next to her. 

“Blood,” she said simply. 

It was only his quick reflexes that kept his drink from slipping from his fingers, though obviously he’d had too much anyway because there was no way he just heard what he thought he heard. “Come again?” 

“I’ll let you drink some of my blood if you let me drink some of yours,” she said more clearly, face inflamed with heat. 

“Why?” Damon asked dumbfoundedly. “I thought you didn’t want to be a vampire.” 

“What I didn’t want was to be forced against my will to become one. No one ever asked me what I wanted,” she pointed out. “But no. That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?” Damon asked, even more confused. “What other reason could you have? You don’t seem to be in need of healing…”

“It’s just…the blood you fed me last week. It tasted…I don’t even know. I mean, with all the adrenaline and fear and everything, I can’t be sure and I need to know…”

“I’m sure your brain was just addled,” Damon told her, downing the last of his drink and pouring another one. “Vampire blood isn’t supposed to taste good to humans.”

“I know,” she admitted. “Which is why I need to try it again. Just to see. So I can get it out of my head and put it behind me.” 

Damon looked suspiciously at her as he thought it over. It would definitely be a good way to piss off his brother, especially if he held the information for the right time. That and he was just drunk enough and just hungry enough that he didn’t think he could bring himself to refuse anyway. “Fine, but I go first. That way my blood will heal you afterwards.” He would be able to drink more from her that way too.

“Fair enough,” she nodded, pulling her hair to the side and baring her neck. She knew that he wouldn’t kill her. If he was willing to do so, he would have done it before. 

Damon smirked and drained his glass again before setting it aside and pulling her sideways into his lap so he could get a better angle. Her bright blush just made her blood run faster in her veins and was nearly as intoxicating as the alcohol he’d spent the day consuming. He pressed his lips softly to her neck, partially to make this as sensual as possible, and partially to give her a moment to change her mind. When she didn’t, he bared his fangs and bit into her gently. She was more likely to come back for more if he didn’t make it hurt too much. Not that he was sure if he wanted her to come back for more or not. He drank long and deeply, pushing her to the brink of unconsciousness before he pulled himself away. It took far more effort to do so than usual. Her blood was exquisite. Like nothing he’d ever tasted. 

Elena let out a gasp at the bite and she was amazed at how…arousing…it felt to feel. His teeth in her neck as he sucked. The feel of her blood leaving her body. The knowledge that, in this moment, her life was literally in his hands. She had never imagined that she would enjoy such a thing, but she did. Even the touch of his hands and the feeling of his arms around her almost burned with sensation. She wondered if it always felt this way. Just as he started to wonder if he was going to stop, he did, and she pointedly ignored the erection she could feel under her thigh. 

Damon resisted the urge to chuckle at how much she seemed to enjoy that. There were rare humans who got off on being fed on. It seemed that she was one of them. He could definitely have fun with that. But first for his part of the bargain before she ended up passing out from the blood loss. That definitely wasn’t in his best interests at the moment. She wanted to be conscious and aware of the taste of his blood and he would give her that much. Instead of biting his wrist open as he normally would have, he reached up and dragged a fingernail across his neck, allowing the blood to flow. “Your turn. If you still want it?” he said challengingly. 

Elena nodded and slowly moved her lips to his neck, trying not to think about how intimate this was. Yes, Stefan would most definitely be pissed if he ever found out. The moment the blood touched her lips, she knew that her impressions from that night were right. It was the best thing she’d ever tasted. She couldn’t even put it into words. It was just…bliss. She both heard and felt the breathy moan pull from Damon’s throat as his arms pulled her tighter against him, erection getting even more prominent. She couldn’t stop her hand from sliding up his chest and tangling in his hair, pulling his head further to the side as she drank greedily, wondering if this was how vampires felt when they fed from humans. 

Damon was so lost in arousal that he didn’t even realize or care how much she was drinking until he started feeling a little woozy himself and he pushed her away. “Easy there, princess. I don’t have an unlimited supply,” he chuckled. 

“Sorry,” she blushed brightly, having enough blood in her body to do so again as her eyes met his and her breath hitched. She could see the lust burning there as his eyes flickered from hers to her lips and back again. 

Damon was having more trouble than he could have imagined controlling himself right now. That had been beyond hot, and now, with her sitting in his lap, her lips red with the remnants of his blood, letting her go was almost beyond his abilities. “Still liked it, huh?” he asked smugly, running his thumb over the soft skin of her side. 

Elena didn’t think she could get any redder as she scrambled off his lap and to the other side of the couch. “I thought it wasn’t supposed to taste good?” 

“I guess there are always exceptions,” Damon smirked. “Maybe I’m just an exceptionally tasty vampire. Or you’re just an exceptionally odd human.” 

“Right. Okay. I um…I guess I should…um…go,” she said nervously, eyes fliting to the obvious bulge in his jeans before she got up and rushed out. 

Damon hadn’t missed that last glance and managed to wait until the door closed behind her to grin arrogantly as he picked up his glass and poured himself another drink. Now if that wasn’t the perfect distraction to pull him from his melancholy, he didn’t know what was. He wasn’t naïve enough to think it would work for long, but he would enjoy the reprieve while it lasted.


	2. Chapter 2

When Stefan got back in time for school Monday, Elena felt the guilt of what she’d done wash over her and promised herself that it wouldn’t happen again. It had been a one time experiment. That was all. Now that she knew she would be able to stop thinking about it and move on. She ignored the ‘hopefully’ that her mind unhelpfully added onto that thought. The thought of telling Stefan only briefly entered her mind before she pushed it away. She knew that the relationship between the brothers was more than a little rocky and she didn’t want to be the cause of putting another wedge there. Stefan didn’t need to know. 

She managed to keep her mind off of it, with little effort, for a few days at least. Then the thought of Damon, particularly his blood, started intruding more and more on her thoughts. It prompted her to ask Stefan a few times how Damon was doing. Not at all suspicious as a concerned friend. Stefan told her that he was fine, but Elena wasn’t so sure. He obviously wasn’t fine when she went by there last time. Not that she could tell Stefan that. 

By Christmas Eve she couldn’t keep herself away anymore. She told herself that she just wanted to check on her friend for the holiday that was likely to be as difficult for him as it was for her, being the first Christmas without her parents. That was at least most of the reason she was going anyway. The timing though…while Stefan had told her that he would be out hunting in preparation for spending Christmas day with her family…that was all for her ulterior motive. 

Elena made sure to take her gifts for both Stefan and Damon. It would be a good enough excuse at least. Damon came to the door not long after she rang the bell, looking even more messed up than last time, but she supposed that was to be expected. She would probably be just as bad if she didn’t have Stefan and the many distractions on her mind. “Stefan’s out,” Damon told her as he answered the door. 

“I know,” Elena said. 

A smirk flitted across Damon’s face at that as he stepped aside and waved her in. “Then by all means…come in.” He led her to the living room and he refilled his drink before sitting next to her. “What brings you here?” He was definitely hoping for another tit for tat situation. 

“Well first, I want to apologize,” she said sheepishly. “The last time I was here…I was nervous about what I was gonna ask you so I wanted to get it out of the way and then after…well…I never got the chance to ask how you were.” 

“Just peachy. Why wouldn’t I be?” Damon ignored the discomfort rolling through him at the turn of the conversation. 

“You don’t have to do that, Damon,” Elena said reaching out to put her hand on his. “We’re friends now. You can talk to me if you’re hurting.”

Damon jerked his hand back. While normally he would revel in the idea of her touching him, right now…like this…not so much. “I’m fine, Elena. Really.”

“Damon…” she sighed wearily. 

Damon got up to pace. “Just because the last hundred and forty five years of my life have been wasted working towards a pointless goal for a woman who used me, turned me, and then abandoned me…who cares. That’s life, right?” he said running a frustrated hand through his hair. “Lesson learned.” 

“I’m sorry, Damon,” she said sympathetically. 

“Just drop it, Elena,” he snapped. He really didn’t want to talk about how much of a naïve fool he’d been to let her con him like that. He didn’t want to point out how ridiculously lovesick he’d acted. He hated himself for being so gullible to fall for her tricks. 

“Okay,” she said sadly. She wanted to help, but she had no idea how to and if he didn’t want to talk, she didn’t know how to make him. 

“That all you came for?” he asked tightly. 

“No, I also wanted to give you your Christmas present since I doubt I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, pulling a small wrapped gift from her pocket. 

“Oh?” Damon perked up a bit at that. He hadn’t expected her to get him anything. “What is it?” he asked suspiciously. 

“You’ll just have to open it and find out,” she chuckled. 

He rolled his eyes amusedly and sat down, taking the gift from her and pulling the paper off. “A…coaster?” he blinked at it, not sure if he should be insulted or not. 

“Not just a coaster,” she told him, reaching over to flip it over in his hands. “It has a warming feature. You set the temperature here on the back and it will heat any beverage placed on it to that temperature. It won’t work so well for insulated containers, of course, but I know you always complain about the temperature of the bagged blood so…” 

“This is just your way of trying to get me to stop feeding on living humans isn’t it?” he asked with narrowed eyes. 

“No,” Elena chuckled. “I mean…maybe a little, but I know this isn’t gonna help much, if at all, with that anyway so…”

“Well…thank you,” he said, honestly touched by the gesture. “I got you something too. Wait here.” He had been waffling over giving it to her at all, especially since he didn’t know if she was going to get him anything. The fact that she had, and that it was an actual thoughtful gift, regardless of any ulterior motives, decided him though. He blurred up to his room and was back in seconds. “It’s not wrapped or anything but…”

Elena took the book from his hands and turned it over to read the name engraved on the spine and snorted amusedly before opening the leather bound cover and gasping. “This is an autographed, first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” 

“I found it in the library. Thought you would appreciate the irony,” he chuckled. 

Elena rolled her eyes. Leave it to Damon to disguise a thoughtful gesture as a joke. Then she noticed the inscription. “For Damon. Thanks for the inspiration. Bram…are you freaking kidding me?” Elena wasn’t sure if she was horrified or entertained.

“What? I was bored,” Damon laughed with a shrug. 

Elena decided to leave that alone. At least for now. She’d never actually read this book, but now knowing that Damon was the inspiration behind Dracula, she definitely planned to do that asap. Still… “Are you sure you want to give this to me, though? I mean…it’s special.”

Damon shrugged again. “Why not? I’ve read it a dozen times or so, and I know you like books.” 

“Well…thank you,” Elena said breathlessly, hugging it to her chest like a priceless treasure. 

Damon was a little taken aback at the emotion in her eyes, so just looked away. “Thanks for the coaster. It’ll come in handy,” he said lightly. 

“You’re welcome.” She took a few deep breaths before bringing up the other reason for her visit. “Are you…thirsty? Maybe?” she asked, biting her lip nervously. 

When he looked at her with a raised eyebrow, wondering if he really was going to get so lucky again, she pulled her hair around her neck and tilted her head to the side to make her offer clear, and yeah. It looked like he really was gonna get that lucky. “Same deal as last time?” When she nodded, he pulled her into his lap. This time he took a moment to meet her eyes with a sultry smirk as he brushed a hand lightly down her cheek before he slowly lowered his mouth to her neck. He pressed a few sloppy kisses there before baring his fangs and biting into her, managing to hold back his moan at the delectable taste of her blood. 

Elena could feel the heat pooling between her legs as her eyes fluttered closed and she lost herself in the sensation, not even noticing, or caring, about the way his hands slid over her back and sides, and even the outside of her legs as he drank. Nor did she notice the way that she was grinding against his rapidly forming erection. She just wanted this feeling to last forever. Just when she thought that she might pass out, he stopped drinking and proceeded to lick her neck clean slowly as her heart rate sped up even more. 

Damon licked his lips clean, taking a few deep breaths to steady himself before he pulled a cut on his neck and Elena wasted no time attaching her lips to it and this time Damon couldn’t hold back his moan. He wondered if this was how she felt when she was being fed on and if so, how had she managed to wait a week to come back for more. He was surprised, but definitely not complaining, when she shifted to straddle his lap and he sucked in a sharp breath as he felt her rock her hips over his aching cock. His arm went around her waist as he pulled her down tighter, thrusting up against her and pulling a moan from her own throat that he could feel vibrate through him from where her lips were attached to his neck.


	3. Chapter 3

As much as he wanted this to continue forever, as he’d said last time, he didn’t have an unlimited supply of blood and he was getting a bit low, so his hand wrapped in her hair and pulled her head back. He couldn’t help himself from crashing his lips into hers and was even more surprised when she kissed him back just as feverishly, continuing to move in his lap and drive him to the brink. He could tell that she was getting there too, but then he heard the most irritating sound in his life. His brother’s car. He used his vampire speed to deposit her on the other couch across from him and she looked completely shellshocked, so he whispered, “Stefan.” He had no idea why he’d done that. The idea of his brother walking in on that should have thrilled him. The only think he could think of was not wanting to put her in the crossfire. A thought later and he was handing her a small glass of whiskey. “Your mouth tastes like my blood,” he whispered again. 

Elena’s eyes widened and she took a long drink, swishing it around in her mouth before swallowing with a wince as she quickly straightened her clothes and hair. When the front door opened, Damon casually leaned forward, hiding his raging erection, as Elena leaned back just as casually, making it seem like they’d been having a normal conversation. “Elena! What are you doing here?” Stefan asked in surprise, looking between her and his brother. 

Damon had never been as glad that Stefan’s sense of smell was more diminished due to drinking animal blood. Otherwise he would be able to smell the arousal that hung in the air as Elena answered, “I just thought we could exchange our gifts tonight instead of doing it tomorrow with the whole audience.” After a moment’s thought she added. “I wanted to give Damon his present too.”

“Oh?” Stefan asked curiously, wondering what she got Damon. 

“A coaster,” Damon smirked, picking it up and showing him the boring side. “And I got her a book if you’re curious.” 

“Okay,” Stefan shrugged. As nervous as Damon made him where Elena was concerned, he wasn’t going to let himself become a jealous boyfriend over it. If Elena wanted to be his friend then he wasn’t going to pitch a fit. Though he did wish that she wouldn’t be around him alone, if only for her own safety. “My present for you is upstairs,” he told Elena and she quickly got up and followed him, grabbing her gift from the table, leaving the book that Damon gave her to grab on the way out. 

When she and Stefan got upstairs, she pulled him into a searing kiss. Somehow, almost getting caught had turned her on even more and if she didn’t get some attention soon she was going to burst. Stefan certainly wasn’t complaining and as he laid her gently down in the bed, slowly undressing her, she forcefully pushed away the thought that it was his brother that had gotten her so worked up. Just one more piece to pile in the guilt box that Stefan would never know about and she redoubled her efforts to never let it happen again. 

Damon could hear them upstairs and smirked, ignoring the pain that he couldn’t identify and made no sense, instead focusing on the smug satisfaction of the fact that Stefan would never know that he was the reason Elena was so raring to go tonight. Unless Damon told him of course, which he was still waffling on what the right moment to do so would be. He licked his lips, almost still able to taste her blood there and that thought was enough to spur him into action. He opened his jeans and took his still aching cock out and began to stroke it, remembering the taste of her, the feel of her lips on his neck, on his lips, her grinding against him like a cat in heat. It wasn’t long before he was spilling over his hand, biting his lip so hard it bled to keep from crying out loud enough for Stefan to hear him. The taste of his blood in his mouth reminded him of tasting his blood in her mouth but not nearly as good. 

Now that his immediate issue was resolved, he was able to turn his mind to the more disturbing problems. Why had he been so quick to cover for her and why did it bother him that she was up there with his brother getting her itch scratched. He knew that they had some sort of connection from the moment they met, even if she couldn’t remember that meeting. He’d thought it was because of her resemblance to Katherine, but that wasn’t making sense right now. The last time she had come here, when she first proposed her deal, she had acted more like Katherine than ever. Taking what she wanted and offering something of equal value in exchange. Like a business transaction. Even the drinking his blood had reminded him of her, but there had been nothing. This time was much different. She had been thoughtful, kind, compassionate…everything that Katherine wasn’t…and that connection had flared brighter than ever. Why?

As Stefan rolled off of Elena, both trying to catch their breath, he couldn’t help but grin. Apparently she had figured out that he was most in control of his hunger after a hunting trip and wanted to take advantage of it. That was one of the things he loved about her. “Are you staying tonight?” he asked hopefully. 

“I can’t,” she said sadly. “It’s Christmas Eve and Jenna would freak if I wasn’t home.”

“I understand,” he told her. “When do you need to leave?” 

“Soon, actually. But before I go…” she reached over and grabbed his gift and handed it to him. 

He grinned and fished in his bedside drawer to find her own before handing it to her and they opened them at the same time. He ran his fingers over the new leather bound journal engraved with his name and a photo of them in the center of the cover. Her gasp pulled him from his thought as she opened the box and he kissed her softly before helping her put on the charm bracelet. 

“It’s beautiful, Stefan. Thank you,” she smiled. 

Once that was done and they got dressed again, Stefan asked, “Do you want me to drive you home?” 

“No, it’s fine. Thank you though,” she told him. 

“Out of curiosity, what book did Damon get you?” 

“Dracula,” she said as she left out everything that made it special and priceless. 

Stefan rolled his eyes. “Typical.”

“He said he thought I would enjoy the irony,” she chuckled as Stefan shook his head and kissed her one more time before she left. 

On her way out, she slipped into the living room to grab the book. She gave Damon a nervous smile, mouthing, ‘thank you’, to him and getting ‘you’re welcome’ mouthed back. There was something different in his smile at that, but Elena couldn’t place it, so put it out of her mind. She waited until she got in the car to send Damon a text message. ‘Please don’t tell Stefan’. 

Damon heard his phone buzz and pulled it curiously out of his pocket. When he read the message he faltered a bit. He had been planning to tell Stefan everything. At just the right moment to hurt him the most. It was the least his brother deserved. That message just highlighted the fact that Stefan wouldn’t be the only one hurt by that and Elena didn’t deserve it. Well, if he wanted to get technical, messing around with her boyfriend’s brother did make it deserved, but he still didn’t want to hurt her like that anyway. It was a few minutes before he managed to make a firm decision and responded with, ‘I won’t’. 

‘It can’t happen again’, Elena replied after breathing a sigh of relief at his response, only to get back, ‘I know’. She smiled and put her phone away as she pulled out. 

Damon huffed and leaned his head back against the couch, taking a long sip of his drink. Not only could he not use the information to torture his brother now, but he wouldn’t even have the comfort of it happening again. He had no idea what it was about her blood that tasted so delectable, but he just couldn’t get enough. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t fed straight from the tap in so long. Being in this town with their vampire mania wasn’t very conducive to his health. That was it. He just needed to get out for a bit. Damon checked the time and smirked before heading out. If he hurried, he could get there for the last hour of shopping in the city. The anxiety of the last-minute shoppers always made their blood taste better.


	4. Chapter 4

Damon refrained from killing anyone on his own hunting trip, choosing instead to ‘snatch, eat, erase’, and came home full, but unsatisfied. None of them had tasted half as good as Elena. He comforted himself with the fact that soon enough he would be able to forget how amazing she tasted and put the whole thing behind him. He still couldn’t resist throwing a few smug looks at his brother over the next few days, despite Stefan not knowing the reason behind them, and he could tell that he was making him nervous. Stefan was probably wondering what sort of nefarious plot he had cooking this time. Oh if only he knew. 

When New Year’s even came around, Stefan went out on a hunting trip in the afternoon, and Elena turned up on the doorstep yet again not long after he left. Damon gave a wide smirk, before opening the door and letting her in. “You do know Stefan isn’t here right?” He was almost positive that she did, but wanted to make sure. 

Elena blushed brightly as she nodded, following him into the living room. “He told me he would be out hunting.” 

Damon threw his arm around the back of the couch and leaned towards her, but not too close. “I thought you said we couldn’t do this again.” 

“Just one more time?” she asked hopefully. The she would have it out of her system. She was sure of it. Just one more taste of his blood. She hadn’t decided that it would be the last time before so she needed to do it once with that in mind. 

Damon smirked smugly and pulled her over his lap so that she was straddling him from the start this time and she squirmed uncomfortably, holding herself up just enough to keep a bit of space between their groins. Damon reached up, brushing his knuckles over her bright red cheek on the way to pushing her hair back. As he slowly leaned in, he heard her say, “No kissing this time.” He paused for a moment before nodding. If that was the price to pay for this, then he would resist the taunting. He bared his fangs and sank them into her neck. 

Elena sighed blissfully and it only took a moment before she wasn’t able to hold herself up anymore. She lowered her core over his growing length, confined in his jeans, and let out a moan at how much more fully she could feel him without her jeans in the way. His still were, but she just had her rapidly moistening panties as a barrier as she rocked her hips against him, reveling in the feeling of him drinking her blood. 

Damon pulled her down tightly, rolling his hips up against her, not even caring if he was going to end up creaming his pants, just hoping he would be able to get his release this time before it ended. When he knew that she couldn’t lose any more blood, he pulled back, still using his tongue to clean up any residual mess. He knew that she wouldn’t want Stefan to see that or risk any of it dripping onto her pretty dress. Once she was clean, he reached up and pulled a cut in his own neck, letting his head fall back as she attacked it greedily. 

Elena knew this was getting way out of hand, but that part of her had been shoved down by the indescribable lust that washed over her the moment his teeth sank into her neck and only heightened as she began to drink from him. She was completely overwhelmed with euphoria as their bodies moved together. She could feel one of his hands at the small over her back, guiding her movements to meet his while the other tangled in her hair, holding her tighter against his neck as both of them moaned wantonly and he gasped for breath. She was breathing more than a little heavy too, pulling her lips from his neck every so often to suck in a sharp breath when she couldn’t get enough air through her nose, but she was always right back there again. 

Damon hated that he had to stop her. He was so close, but he couldn’t lose any more blood. He pulled her away from his neck, allowing the wound to heal now that it wasn’t being held open by the flow, but couldn’t help but beg. “God…Elena…please…don’t stop…” 

Elena knew she should stop. It was the right thing to do. No, not being here at all would have been the right thing to do, but she was, so she might as well go all the way. She didn’t know if she could stop anyway. She was just as close as he was, so she just let it continue, trying to resist the urge to kiss him now that his face was inches from hers. And then their eyes met, and the unrestrained lust she could see shining in his eyes was her undoing as she leaned down and captured his lips. 

Damon returned the kiss frantically as his motions sped up, wanting nothing more than to be buried inside her right now, but taking what he could get. When he needed air, he dragged his lips from hers and down her jaw to her neck and her hand in his hair guided him even lower. As his lips and tongue trailed through her cleavage, he felt her tense and shudder, letting out a gasping moan and that was all it took for him blow and his head was yanked back as she kissed him again as they both trembled their way through their orgasms. 

Once the wave of pleasure ended, Elena’s brain switched back on and she scrambled off his lap, nearly falling over the coffee table. “Oh god,” she panted. “We…I…oh god.” 

Damon pushed away the stabbing pain, only a twitch of his face betraying him. “You really should go change your underwear before Stefan gets home. His sense of smell may be muted but he’ll definitely smell /that/,” he said pulling a sarcastic mask over his reeling feelings. When Elena nodded dumbfoundedly, still too stunned to move, Damon rolled his eyes and handed her his whiskey. “But wash the taste of blood out of your mouth first. Not sure he’ll recognize the taste of me specifically, but he’ll definitely know it’s vampire blood and I’m sure we don’t want that,” he said harshly as he got up and made his own escape. She wasn’t the only one who needed to change clothes. 

It wasn’t until he left the room that Elena felt like she could breathe again and barely remembered to swish her mouth as she tossed back the whiskey before running upstairs to Stefan’s room. She was really glad that she’d started keeping some clothes here and even had the forethought to rinse her soaked panties in the bathroom sink before ringing them out and shoving them to the bottom of the almost full hamper. If Damon was right and he would be able to smell that then the hamper wouldn’t be much better than on her otherwise. 

Once all traces of her ill-advised tryst were hidden, she checked her watch, seeing that there was still an hour before they were supposed to leave for the party and she spent the next half hour until Stefan got home pacing in his room, wallowing in the guilt and struggling with the idea of hiding it from him. He didn’t deserve to be hurt like that though. He was always so good to her and he didn’t deserve to be treated this way. The least she could do is make sure that he wasn’t hurt by it and she swore to herself that it would never happen again. It didn’t matter how much she loved the taste of Damon’s blood and the feel of being fed on. It wouldn’t happen again. She couldn’t let it. Oh how she wished she could have that with Stefan though, but he would never allow it and she knew that. 

Stefan was surprised to find her in his room when he came up, but he wasn’t complaining. He pulled her in for a soft, slow kiss before saying, “I need a shower before I get ready, but you’re welcome to join me.” 

Elena forced a grin to her face and nodded. She would just be putting the same clothes back on after, but that wasn’t the point. She gladly followed him to the shower, intent on making her lapse in judgement up to him, even if he didn’t realize that. They spent quite a while enjoying the shower and ended up leaving for the New Year’s party at the grill almost an hour late, but with big smiles on their faces, even if one of them was hiding a heartful of guilt.


	5. Chapter 5

Elena studiously avoided going to the boarding house or seeing Damon at all after that. There was no point dangling temptation in front of her. She still considered him a friend though so she did ask Stefan again how he was doing. Other than their brief interlude that she was trying not to think about, he didn’t seem so good last week. Stefan assured her that he was fine though, so she put it out of her mind. Unfortunately, she couldn’t avoid him forever and had no good excuse not to meet Stefan at his house to go to the charity auction. 

Stefan had told her to let herself in and she was glad that Damon wasn’t in sight when she got there. That would make this easier. She went straight up to Stefan’s room to lessen her chances of running into him, only to find him stumbling out of Stefan’s bathroom. Elena was taken aback at his appearance. “You look…um…”

“Dashing? Gorgeous? Irresistable?” he guessed, slurring the last word as he moved closer to her. His state was as much due to his realization that he felt something for her, completely separate from Katherine, as it was his rejection by Katherine, and he was both overjoyed and irritated to see her. 

Elena leaned back away from him as she finished with, “Wrecked. You look wrecked.”

“No reason why,” he shrugged. “Did you know that I am one of Mystic Falls most eligible bachelors?” he struggled with the last two words again as he turned back to the mirror to shrug his shirt on.

“How are you doing?” she asked worriedly.

“Never better,” Damon said. “Yup, so what can I do for ya. I am a barrel of favors today. It’s my newfound purpose. How can I help people?” He knew that even if she wanted more blood, he would have to deny her. Not only would Stefan be back any minute, but he had to leave soon too, so it was a safe enough question to ask. 

Elena was more worried than ever and wasn’t going to ask him for anything right now even if she did have something to ask for. “I’m just meeting Stefan. We’re going to the fundraiser.”

Damon was struggling with his buttons and finally gave up and turned to Elena. “Help a guy out would ya? I can’t…get this…”

Elena resisted the urge to roll her eyes and went over to help him button up his shirt, trying to ignore how being so close to him and even helping him dress made her feel. Instead, she tried for a subject that wasn’t him. “So…I found out who my birth mother is.”

“Who cares,” Damon replied and at the hurt look on her face he clarified what he meant. “She left you. She sucks.”

Elena got lost in Damon’s eyes for a minute before she heard footsteps and pulled herself away, leaving him only half buttoned. “Stefan,” she said relieved. “There you are.” Damon made his escape soon after, but not without a quip to Stefan about his physique and Elena looked at Stefan and said incredulously, “He’s fine?”

“He’s Damon,” Stefan said with a shrug. 

Elena really didn’t like how cavalierly he was taking this. She was worried about him, but she also knew that pushing this subject with Stefan was the absolute worst thing she could do right now so she tried to take a hard line stance. “Maybe this heartache will be good for him. It’ll remind him that he has one, even if it doesn’t beat.” 

“Won’t hold my breath,” Stefan huffed a laugh. 

They got to the auction and picked a good table, sitting with Jenna, who was the only one of the three with a ticket of course. Stefan had been off getting them drinks when the disaster happened, and Damon started taunting Alaric about his dead wife. When Elena took off, Stefan rushed out to catch her. “He killed her? /Damon/ was the vampire that killed her?” she asked incredulously.

“I don’t know what happened,” Stefan told her. “Alaric said that they never found the body.”

“Oh my god,” Elena tried to wrap her head around it. “Stefan…” 

“I know. I’m sorry. I was gonna tell you, I just wanted to know more.”

Elena felt like she was gonna be sick. “I was feeling sorry for him. Hoping that this whole Katherine thing would change him. I am so stupid,” she breathed out. Even more for ever letting him get close to her in the first place. 

“He doesn’t know about the connection to you. I thought about confronting him, but he’s already so on edge…”

Elena snapped at that. “Why are you protecting him?” she asked heatedly. She’d forgiven a lot from him in the past but this was a new low. 

“Because you’re not the only one hoping that he might actually change,” Stefan said wearily. 

Elena had enough and stormed back inside, unable to talk about this anymore and ran straight into Damon. Literally. “Whoa. Easy there. Buy a ticket like everybody else,” he joked.

“Did you enjoy that? Rubbing it in to Alaric Saltzman? Just as I was starting to think that there was something redeemable about you,” she sneered. 

“What?” Damon asked confused. Sure it wasn’t his finest moment, but she seemed a little more upset about it than she should have been. When Stefan came up behind him to warn Elena off he was sure of it. “Am I missing something here?”

“Did I forget to mention earlier while we were talking…about my birth mother…the one that gave me up? Her name was Isobel.” The smile immediately dropped from Damon’s face at that, and Elena actually enjoyed the anguished look on his face. “Go ahead. Reminisce about how you killed her,” she snapped as she brushed by him and stormed off.

When she got home, she found him waiting in her room, sitting on her window seat. “I am NOT in the mood to deal with you tonight, Damon,” she snarled. 

“Wait…please. Just hear me out for one minute,” Damon got up and held his arms out in a placating gesture. 

Elena huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine. Talk. Then get out.” 

“I didn’t kill her,” Damon said quickly. “/She/ came to /me/, begging to be turned.”

“How did she know you were a vampire?” Elena asked suspiciously. 

“She found me through an old acquaintance. She had spent her life dedicated to the study of vampires. I was skeptical at first, but I didn’t see any reason not to give her what she wanted. I didn’t know that she was your mother Elena. I didn’t even know you existed back then. I never would have said a word tonight if I’d known. Please believe that,” he all but begged. She was the first person who’d ever seen anything good in him and he couldn’t bear to lose that. 

Elena couldn’t quite wrap her head around that one yet, so changed the subject. “Rubbing it in to Alaric was cruel and heartless,” she snapped. 

“Yeah, well…he’s made it his life’s mission to kill me, so pardon me if I don’t care.” 

Elena couldn’t really argue with that. Well, she could, but she knew she wouldn’t get anywhere so she didn’t bother. “But you do care about me?” she asked starting to soften just a bit. 

“Of course, I do,” Damon told her. “You’re my friend, Elena. Your words.” When she didn’t say anything, he went for broke. “Look, you want to hurt me, go ahead. I won’t stop you. You want some blood, take it. No payment required. Just tell me that we can get past this. That you won’t hate me forever.”

Elena hesitated for a minute, but the fact that she couldn’t really hurt him and she really needed to let off some steam, spurred her into action as she stepped forward and slapped him as hard as she could. His head snapped to the side before he looked back at her. That had felt so good that she kept going. She punched him in the stomach and he doubled over a bit before straightening and her next punch went straight for his jaw. That was a mistake though because it hurt like a bitch. She could swear she felt some of the bones in her hand crack. 

She hadn’t been planning to take him up on the offer of blood, but that changed now. She wrapped her good hand in the front of his shirt, jerking it away when he reached for her hand concernedly, and instead turned him around and shoved him on the bed. She knew that she was only able to do that because he let her, but it still made her feel powerful. She grabbed her pocketknife from her bedside drawer and straddled his lap, dragging a deeper than usual cut on his neck before leaning down to drink. She immediately felt her hand heal as lust mixed with her anger. She could feel Damon hardening beneath her as he moaned, but when his arms started to wrap around her, she grabbed his wrists and slammed them to the bed over his head without pausing in her drinking. 

Damon sucked in a sharp breath at the movement, cock going from half hard to fully hard in an instant. He knew that he could break her grip with barely any effort at all, but he didn’t want to. He thrust up against her writhing with pleasure and she bit his neck with a growl. He took the hint and forced himself to stay still, just letting her take, partially because it made him hotter than ever and partially because he had placed himself completely in her hands and he would do whatever she wanted here even if it killed him. 

Elena couldn’t help but rock her hips over him a little bit, but resisted as much as she could as she held him down and drank. “E-Elena…too much…” Damon gasped out before long, but she didn’t stop and he didn’t force her to. It wasn’t until she felt his erection flagging and his muscles relaxing as he got weaker that she finally pulled herself away. 

“We /can/ get past this,” she said firmly, pulling back to look in his eyes. “And I /won’t/ hate you forever. But I will for a while,” she finished as she climbed off of him. “Now leave.” 

Damon swallowed heavily, wincing at the feel of his neck that wasn’t healing yet and dragged himself weakly out of the bed. As much as he wanted to use the door this time, he knew it would be a bad idea so he staggered over to the window and climbed out, groaning in pain as he dropped to the ground, taking a minute to recover before he picked himself back up and stumbled to his car, glad that he’d packed a couple blood bags in there in case of emergency, because this definitely qualified. He wouldn’t even make it home this way without them.


	6. Chapter 6

As soon as Damon was gone, Elena went to take a very cold shower, and it wasn’t until she got out that she started feeling a little bit bad for what she’d done. She had let her anger get the best of her. The hitting him was one thing. He was a vampire. She couldn’t hurt him for more than a second or two. Draining him as much as she did had been too far though. She couldn’t see it through her anger at the time, but she noticed that his neck wasn’t healing, and she had cut him pretty deep. He had also been stumbling and barely made it out of the window. More than that was the fact that he had let her. He could have stopped her at any time, but he just completely put his life into her enraged hands, and all he asked in return was forgiveness. 

She couldn’t forgive him yet though. Not for this. Intellectually, she knew that what he did wasn’t so bad, aside from the way he treated Alaric, but for someone who had just lost the parents that raised her, learning that she had other parents out there and then this…she was far from rational on the subject. She knew that she could get past it. She just needed some time. She needed to wallow in the anger for a while so that the despair couldn’t set in and he was the best target for her anger. It also helped her resist the urge to go to him for blood too, which was a good thing.

He seemed to be giving her space since she didn’t see him until the next disaster two weeks later when they learned that all the tomb vampires had escaped. Learning that he’d made a deal with the head vampire just made it easier for her to stay mad which was why she had been dodging his calls. She knew that when he showed up on her doorstep anyway that something was actually wrong and learning that Stefan had been taken scared her to death. 

She argued her way into going with him to get Stefan, but he made her wait in the car. When she saw him coming back alone, she rushed out to meet him with the umbrella. If the situation had been less serious she might have laughed at how much he looked like a drowned rat. “What happened? Where is he?” she asked frantically.

“They have him. I can’t get in,” Damon told her, nearly as frantic as she was. He may hate his brother and delight in torturing him, but that didn’t mean anyone else got to. Not to mention, he definitely didn’t want Stefan dead which was a real possibility. 

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because the woman who owns the house is compelled to not let me in,” Damon explained wearily.

“I can get in,” Elena said, starting to head in that direction.

Damon grabbed both her arms and pushed her back. “You’re not going in there,” he said firmly.

“I’m going,” she argued, trying to push off his grip.

“You’re /not/ going in there,” he said more firmly. There was no way he was risking her life like that. 

“We’ve got to do something.”

“I know.”

“We can’t let them hurt him. We’ve got to get him out of there.”

“I know,” Damon said again before taking her face in his hands and making her look at him. “Elena! I know. But I don’t know how to get him out.”

“I have an idea,” Elena said. “Come on,” she jumped back in the car and explained her idea while they drove.

After a bit of male posturing between Damon and Ric, Elena stepped out and asked for his help. They tried to convince him but he just kept refusing. Right up until Damon told him that the person in charge could help him find Isobel and he finally agreed. Then came the argument about her going along. It took some doing, but the best Damon would agree to was letting her drive the getaway car. “You can’t stop me. It’s Stefan we’re talking about here. You don’t understand.”

“Oh I understand,” Damon said rolling his eyes. “I understand. He’s the reason you live. His love lifts you up where you belong. I get it,” he said mockingly.

“Can you just not joke around for like two seconds?” she snapped.

That was it for Damon’s temper. “I can’t protect you, Elena. I don’t know how many vampires there are in there,” he said harshly before snapping his fingers. “That’s how long it takes you to get your head ripped off. I need to be able to get in and get out. I can’t be distracted with your safety.” He caught her eyes and said as seriously as he could muster, “Or this will turn into a blood bath that /none/ of us walk away from. Including Stefan.” Elena looked down miserably and Damon felt bad. “I know. I get it,” he said sympathetically.

“Look if we’re gonna go, let’s go,” Ric said grabbing his gear, suddenly realizing that there was more to Damon Salvatore than met the eye. If he didn’t get him killed in this, he might have to stop trying to kill him. 

While they waited for Ric to load up his gear that he wouldn’t let anyone help with, Elena asked Damon, “How can she find his wife if she’s been in a tomb for so long?” 

“She can’t,” Damon admitted. 

“But you said…”

“It’s Stefan, Elena. Could you think of a better way to get him to help?” Elena just nodded. She couldn’t argue with that, despite how bad she felt about the lie. Getting Stefan back was more important. She was more than a little surprised that Damon thought so too though. They hated each other. That much was obvious and they both freely admitted it. But apparently even for them family was still family. 

Once they got there, Elena waited in the car for as long as she could manage, but couldn’t take it anymore so she got out and went to help. She crept down to the cellar and was about to take out the vampire guard, but Damon slipped out of the shadows and got him first. She’d had no idea he was even there, and she suddenly realized how bad of an idea this was. If he had been any other vampire she would have been dead in that fingersnap amount of time.

“Are you insane?” he asked incredulously, but let her come along for the rest. It was better than her making a run for it alone across the open yard. At least while she was next to him he had a snowball’s chance in hell of protecting her. He was halfway glad that she’d come when the ropes Stefan was hung with were coated with vervain and Damon told her to get him down. He could have done it himself, it just would have hurt like a bitch and since she was here anyway there was no point.

Once they had him loose, Damon went to distract the rest of the house while Elena tried to get Stefan to the car. Stefan was weak and was taken down easily, but he’d done a little damage himself. Enough for Elena to get away, but she refused to leave. Elena knew enough to know how this worked. Stefan was starved and bled out so he would never win the fight. Even if he hadn’t been he would be at a disadvantage due to the animal blood instead of human. He was currently unconscious, but Elena had a cut on her hand so she put it over his mouth, hoping it would be enough to wake him up so he could take what he needed. 

Once he was awake, he kept arguing with her to run, but there was no way in hell she was leaving him behind to be killed. Not now, not ever, and especially not just to save her own life. They were in this together. It took longer than she wanted to get him to drink from her and it wasn’t until she lifted him in her arms and forced his mouth to her neck that he did so. She wasn’t afraid. She’d done this before, not that he knew that of course. 

Elena realized the difference immediately. First of all, unlike with Damon, it hurt. A lot. She could feel her skin ripping. Then he didn’t want to stop, even when she tried to push him away. She’d heard about his issues with human blood, but hadn’t really put much stock in them, assuming that he just preferred not to hurt people. She was starting to get an idea of her mistake now. She never thought she would be glad that the other vampire started getting up, because it distracted Stefan enough to let her go and it was pure adrenaline that gave her the strength to dart behind a tree while Stefan played dead to lure him in. 

Elena held a hand to the gaping wound on her neck, trying to apply pressure as she watched in horror while Stefan completely lost it, stabbing the vampire over and over even after he was dead. When she tried to step in, he turned and went to attack her and she gasped and took a few steps back. She had never been afraid of him before, but right now she absolutely was. She watched him struggle for control for a moment before the veins around his eyes disappeared and the stick fell from his hands. Just as he started to step towards her, Damon was there, with a hand to his chest, pushing him back. “Easy there, brother,” he said gently, before biting his wrist and holding it back to Elena. 

“What are you…”

“I could smell your blood all the way from the house,” Damon told her not taking an eye off his brother. “He’s gonna lose control again if you keep bleeding.” 

“Damon’s right,” Stefan croaked out, forcing himself not to fight to get to her. “Let him heal you.” 

Elena took a deep breath and nodded so Damon bit his wrist again since the first one already closed and this time Elena drank, but she forced herself to take only one swallow. Just enough to heal her neck, before they got in the car. Since she was still covered in blood, Stefan sat in the front next to Damon while Alaric sat in back beside her. The drying blood wasn’t nearly as tempting as flowing blood though they told her as they drove.


	7. Chapter 7

They all went back to the Salvatore house, most of them to shower and change, Ric to pick up his car and go home to do those things. Elena couldn’t help but be a little nervous around Stefan as they awkwardly talked about what happened, but Elena assured him that yes, they would be okay and gave him a long loving kiss before she left, leaving her bloody clothes there to be washed so as not to give Jenna a heart attack. 

She got home and locked herself in her room before curling up on her bed and crying. Seeing Stefan like that had been terrifying and his bite had hurt so much. She didn’t get any enjoyment at all from it, like she did when Damon bit her. She had even started to wonder if she was going to bleed out and then Damon had stepped in, protecting and healing her and just that little taste of his blood completely reignited her longing for it and this was all such a mess. She didn’t understand. Why would Stefan react that way? She managed to pretend to be normal for a few days until Stefan almost lost it on her again and she knew that she was out of her depth, so she texted Damon to come over. He actually used the door for once and Elena quickly dragged him up to her room. 

Damon managed to play it cool when he got to Elena’s house, and even being dragged up to her room. There was no way he was going to let on how much inner turmoil he was dealing with at the moment. He was starting to suspect that he felt far more for her than he wanted to and his fear over her getting hurt the other day was more than a little out of proportion. Then there was the whole blood sharing thing they had going on which always got more than a little sexual despite the fact that she was madly in love with his brother. Yeah…keeping casual around her should have him nominated for an Oscar. 

Elena rolled her eyes when Damon plopped on her bed the second they were in her room and decidedly ignored how adorable he was with her teddy bear. Especially when he used the teddy bear’s arm to point. “What happened over there?” 

Elena wasn’t about to tell him that Stefan had nearly killed her. Again. “Nothing,” she said quickly. When he narrowed his eyes suspiciously, she plowed ahead. “Look, Damon…I’m worried about Stefan. He says that everything’s okay, but he’s clearly struggling. How long is it gonna take before he’s back to normal?” 

“Few days. Give or take,” Damon said with an unconcerned shrug. Just because he’d saved his life didn’t mean that he was his brother’s keep or even cared that much. 

“It’s been a few days,” Elena said tiredly. 

“Give then. I don’t know. What’s the big deal?” he asked as he got up and handed her the teddy bear. 

“He’s not himself, Damon.”

“Well maybe his problem is he’s spent too long /not/ being himself,” Damon said, moving over to rummage in Elena’s underwear drawer. He really needed this conversation to be over and if irritating her enough to end it worked then so be it. 

Elena sighed and grabbed her bra out of his hand and pushed the drawer closed. “Please don’t make me sorry for asking you.”

“It is what it is, Elena,” he said, snatching a picture off his mirror and walking away before she could take it back. 

“The Stefan you know is good behavior Stefan. Rein it in Stefan. Fight against his nature to an annoyingly obsessive level, Stefan, but if you think there’s not another part to this then you…have not been paying attention,” he smirked. 

Elena came over and snatched the picture from his hands. “He’s not you,” she waved it at him. “Not even close.”

“Well he doesn’t want to be me,” Damon pointed out. “But that doesn’t mean that deep down that he’s not.” Truthfully, Stefan was a lot worse than him deep down. At least that part of him was. He knew that she would never believe that though. 

Just as Damon was about to make his escape, Elena called him back with another statement that sounded more like a question. “It hurt when he bit me.” 

Damon sighed and rolled his eyes. So much for getting out of here and avoiding the complicated stuff. “I’m not surprised,” he told her. “You want to be careful what vampires you let feed on you.” 

“I don’t get it…” 

“Look, here’s the deal. Stefan has self-control issues and instead of learning control he lets it control him and then stuff like this happens,” Damon said waving his hands to emphasize his point. 

“Self-control issues?”

“It’s kinda like he’s an alcoholic with a very low tolerance and rage issues,” Damon tried to explain. He could tell she was starting to get it, but wasn’t quite there. “Human blood makes all vampires a little ‘blood-drunk’ as we like to call it. For most of us it’s no different than a buzz after a few beers. We stay in control, but let our inhibitions down a bit.”

“But Stefan has a low tolerance…” she was starting to understand. 

“Precisely,” Damon said clapping a hand on her shoulder. “It only takes him a few drops to lose all sense of control and go on a rage bender…also called a ripper binge…you’re gonna have to ask him for those kinds of details, but long story short…instead of working on building up his tolerance and keeping control, he just stops completely so that when something like this happens, and it always does, it sends him off the deep end.” He skipped to the end and the actual answer to her first not quite question. “It hurt you, because he didn’t just bite. He ripped through your skin and actually tore you open. And you’re damn lucky I got there when I did or you would be dead now. You’re welcome. We done?” he asked curtly already heading for the door. 

“Wait,” Elena called after him. When he sighed heavily and turned to look at her, she asked, “Can you…I mean…can we…” 

“What happened to ‘one last time’?” he asked with a smirk, stalking towards her. 

“I-I know, I just…After that…I need to remember the…good parts…you know?” she stammered. 

“Why? It’s not like he’s going to be feeding on you again or like anything would be different if he did,” Damon pointed out, wanting…no /needing/ her to admit that it was about him. Just this once. That she wanted /him/ even if it was only ever for this. 

She felt her heart in her throat as he met her eyes, stopping just inches away from her. She knew what she was asking for, but she couldn’t give it to him. “B-because I don’t want to start being unreasonably afraid of vampires,” she found an excuse. 

“Being afraid of vampires is /smart/ Elena,” he whispered menacingly, leaning into her space. “You /should/ be afraid.”

“N-not of Stefan. O-or of you,” she told him as her heart started to beat out of her chest. “Please, Damon,” she breathed out.

That was the last straw for Damon’s self-control, and he yanked her to him, biting into her neck in one fluid move, taking a long pull of her blood. When Elena wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed tighter against him with a moan, he laid her down in the bed. It was only reasonable since she wouldn’t be able to stay upright for too much longer anyway. He was careful with his teeth not to tear as he continued drinking during the motion as he slid on top of her. 

Elena’s eyes rolled back in her head at the feeling of him feeding from her again. God she had missed this so much. She marvelled at how graceful he managed to be while laying her down without doing any damage or spilling a drop of blood. Once she was laying, she wrapped her legs around his waist and he quickly took the invitation, pressing his hardening cock against her core as she shoved his leather jacket off his shoulders. Once he had shucked it off, the hand that wasn’t holding him up moved over her stomach and up to her breasts as he moaned, increasing the pace he was moving against her. She couldn’t help but writhe beneath him as his touch trailed fire over her body and in that moment all she wanted was more. 

Damon stopped before she was too far gone, licked up the mess on her neck, and then grabbed her in a searing kiss. She eagerly kissed him back as he reached up to pull a shallow cut over his neck before tilting his head to allow her access. Elena immediately latched on, hands sliding under his shirt over his back as she moved with him. Damon took the chance to slide his hands under her shirt too and pushed her bra out of the way so that he could take her bare breast in his hand and she gave a gasping moan as both her hands moved down to his ass, gripping and pulling as their motions started to turn frantic. When he started feeling the blood loss he pulled his neck away, capturing her in another passionate kiss. 

Damon pinched and twisted her nipple as his hand massaged her breast and that was clearly the last straw for Elena who cried out and arched her back, hands clenching tightly over Damon’s ass cheeks. Damon couldn’t help but follow right behind her, giving a growling moan as he, once again, came in his pants. As much as he wanted her completely, he knew that this was the most he would get from her so he would take it. He wasn’t going to let her panic and run this time though, so he didn’t move off of her right away. As they tried to catch their breath, he leaned his forehead against hers, wanting to get her used to his presence. 

Elena couldn’t help but reach a hand to his cheek as she whispered, “This can’t happen again.” 

“I know,” Damon whispered back, despite knowing that it was a lie. As long as she came to him for this, he was powerless to resist her. He gave it another moment, enjoying the feel of her hand on his cheek, before he leaned down and kissed her soft and slow, surprised when she responded, and then he was gone with vampire speed out the window, leaving her wrecked and breathless in her bed.


	8. Chapter 8

Elena sighed heavily as she fixed her clothes and shoved a pillow over her face as she screamed in frustration. What the hell was wrong with her? She shouldn’t be messing around with Damon. Even if he wasn’t her boyfriend’s brother, he was dangerous. Or was he? He wasn’t to her definitely, but to other people? She knew that he hurt a lot of people. That he’d killed a lot of people. He was a vampire though. Could she really hold him to human standards? Was that even fair? He didn’t seem to think so, but Stefan did. 

Stefan was a whole other can of worms though. Damon at least was usually in control. He killed who he meant to kill and no one else. Stefan was a ticking time bomb if Damon was to be believed. Normally, she wouldn’t have believed him, but she’d seen it with her own eyes. Stefan had completely lost it…almost killed her, while Damon…he was always the picture of control with her. He had never hurt her at all, even when the passion would have caused most people to lose at least a little bit of composure. The time when she drank him nearly dry, he was clearly on the verge of starvation when he stumbled out, but would still have been more than strong enough to overpower her and drink from her in return to fix it, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t even seemed tempted. Not like Stefan had been when he was fighting himself not to hurt her. When he let Damon hold him back until she was healed. Even with that much blood flowing, Damon hadn’t even flinched. She didn’t doubt the fact that Damon had a bit of a temper. She’d seen it herself after all. Been on the receiving end of it even, but that was different.

In the end, she reached the only decision she could. That she had no right to judge either of them. In fact, judging anyone was wrong, really, but especially non-humans. She put any and all comparisons between Stefan and Damon out of her mind. Just because she had some kind of weird obsession with Damon’s blood and being fed on, it didn’t mean anything. She loved Stefan and she would always love Stefan. No matter what. This thing, whatever it was, with Damon was over. 

Damon made it home and to his room to change without being spotted by anyone, especially Stefan, which was a good thing. Since Stefan was currently drinking human blood, apparently to wean himself off of it, he would easily be able to smell Elena on him as well as the remnants of what they had been up to. He jumped in the shower and started a load of laundry wondering how the hell that it happened that he wished his brother was still on the Bambi blood. 

He didn’t see Elena again until the founder’s party a week later which turned into a disaster. First he was confronted by John Gilbert, which wasn’t a problem. Kill him and done. Except it wasn’t as done as that and he ended up calling an emergency council meeting. Damon was almost positive he was about to be outed, and was prepared to fight his way out, but apparently John just wanted to blackmail him instead. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the little Gilbert kept asking questions about Vicki Donovan who he would have much rather stayed buried, and then there was Elena, who kept bugging him with her worries about Stefan. Like he didn’t have enough on his plate already. 

Needless to say, by the time the party was over, he wasn’t in the best of moods and when Elena showed up on his doorstep later that night, he was ready to beat his head against the wall. “Is Stefan here?” she asked. 

“Nope,” Damon told her. “And no I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, but I doubt he’ll be back tonight. That all?” 

“Can we talk?” she asked hopefully. 

Damon sighed heavily and opened the door, stepping aside to let her in. “What now?” 

“Stefan almost fed on some guy in the parking lot tonight. He’s not getting any better.”

“It’s not like switching a flip, Elena. These things take time. You wouldn’t expect a drug addict to be all better in just a week or two would you?” Damon said wearily. 

“No, I guess not,” Elena sighed, realizing what he was getting at. “But you both said he’d be okay in a few days…”

“I can’t speak for him, but I meant okay as in not ready to rip your throat out at the slightest provocation. Not that he would be completely back to normal,” Damon told her.

“Oh. Okay. So he will be okay then?” 

“As I’ve told you, yes. Eventually he’ll be right back on the wagon back to his old boring brooding self.” 

“Good. That’s good,” she sighed, forcing Damon’s use of the word eventually out of her mind. She didn’t ask how long eventually was. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know right now. “You seem a little…testier than usual tonight?” 

Damon ran a hand through his hair in irritation. “The council is on alert and driving me crazy, your Uncle John the worst of all. It’s making it more difficult for me to feed on anything but blood bags, so yeah. I’m a little on edge right now.” 

Elena huffed a laugh, not even thinking as she pulled her hair to the side and said, “Here. Have a drink then.” 

Damon looked between her eyes and her neck a few times, looking for any sign of hesitation, before giving her arm a little tug. She immediately straddled his lap, showing no hesitation of the physical contact between them this time. Damon took a chance and pressed a long line of kisses along the part of her shoulder that wasn’t covered by her dress, feeling her pulse quicken at the attention. Once he reached the sweet spot he gave a sensual suck to the skin, making her breath hitch before he bared his fangs and bit her gently. 

Elena tangled a hand in Damon’s hair, holding him tighter against her neck as she felt the lust building up in her again. Her other hand trailed over his shoulder and down his chest as her hips rolled against him. She felt his hand slide under her dress and over her back as his other one slid down the back of her panties, gripping her ass and controlling her movements to match the press of his hips. She had no idea how his shirt ended up open, but given how busy his hands had been, it must have been her doing as her hand was now trailing over skin like she was trying to memorize every line of every muscle. 

When he pulled away from her neck, she was the one to pull him into a kiss this time as his shirt ended up shoved half off his shoulders. It would have meant moving too much to take it completely off though, so Damon left it like that as he removed the hand from her back to place the cut on his neck and his hand in her hair guided her to it as she began to suck and their pace increased. He moved his hand back under her dress and easily unclasped her bra, hoping that wasn’t too far. When she didn’t protest, he lifted her dress like he was going to take it off, but she shook her head and didn’t move her arms to allow it, so he stopped there, and just slid his hand to her breast, glad that she didn’t seem to mind that at least. 

Elena knew that if clothes started actually being shed that this would go way too far, and they probably wouldn’t stop. She still managed to have enough control to avoid that at least, though it was close. Damon’s blood was as much of a drug to her as human blood was to Stefan and she could feel herself on the brink of losing control. It both terrified her and exhilarated her and she couldn’t get enough. Once she felt him pulling her away from his neck, she kissed him deeply again, marveling, as always, at the skill of his mouth and his tongue and she couldn’t keep herself from wondering what it could do in other places. 

Damon desperately wanted some part of himself to be inside her when she blew this time, even if it meant that he had to take care of himself. He knew it would never be the part he wanted, but maybe…he trailed his hand back down her stomach and used his hand on her ass to lift her enough to slide his hand down over her wet panties. She moaned and her hips bucked against his hand and he could tell she was on the edge, so he slid them to the side, moving his fingers through her folds before slipping two of them quickly inside and crooking them to hit her sweet spot. 

Elena had just been opening her mouth to tell him to stop, but the entreaty died in her throat as her orgasm slammed into her like a tidal wave and all that ended up coming out was a cry of, “Damon!” 

Damon’s eyes closed in ecstasy as he felt her walls pulsing around his fingers and that was all it took for him to spill over with a breathless, “Yes, baby…that’s it…” 

Elena rode out the wave, unable to do anything but tremble and twitch in his arms, but as soon as it was over, she gently pushed his hand away. She didn’t move off his lap yet though, and just rested her head against his. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She didn’t know why she kept doing this. He had just mentioned being tired of blood bags and she didn’t even hesitate. She just couldn’t resist. 

“You have nothing to apologize to me for, Elena,” he panted, turning his head to kiss her softly. 

But she did to Stefan. She knew that. She just kept screwing up and she couldn’t help herself. She pulled her head back and got lost in his eyes, yet again, “This can’t happen again.” She knew by now that it was a lie she told herself. The only way she could go on without the guilt completely crushing her. She still had to say it though. 

“I know,” he said softly, allowing her lie, and knowing just as well as she did that it would happen again. And again. Because they were both powerless to stop what was happening between them, whatever it was. She gave him one more quick soft kiss before climbing off his lap and turning to leave.


	9. Chapter 9

Somehow Elena managed to act normally around Damon after all that, save for the slight blush that tinged her cheeks whenever he would catch her eye and wink when no one was looking. That always earned him a low level glare, just because he knew exactly what he was doing and she wanted him to know that she knew that he knew. When he walked into the changing room while she was getting ready for the Miss Mystic pageant that was a step too far though. “You can’t be back here, Damon,” she said firmly. 

“We need to talk,” he said seriously. 

“Does it have to be right now?” she asked incredulously, waving her dress in the air to point out the bad timing. 

“By all means, carry on,” he couldn’t help but smirk. 

She sighed and hung her dress back up before motioning him to continue. No way was she changing in front of him. Learning that Stefan wasn’t as back on the wagon as he claimed hit her hard. He was stealing blood, going off the rails, and lying to her about it. She ignored the voice in the back of her head calling her a hypocrite. It wasn’t like she wasn’t lying to him and going behind his back with things either. She told herself this was different though. This was how people ended up dying. Any thoughts she might have had about coming clean with Stefan were gone now. The last thing he needed was something pushing him even more off the rails. 

She resisted the urge to laugh hysterically when Stefan walked in and looked at them suspiciously as he asked what was going on. The first time they’d managed to be alone together without losing themselves was the one time he looked at them like that. Damon was quick to make his escape though after informing Stefan of what they were talking about and Elena was left to pick up the pieces. She couldn’t be mad at him for it though. Presumably he’d already tried to get through to Stefan so it was her turn now. She failed just as badly as he apparently had though and Stefan stormed out. 

She took a few deep breaths to center herself as she finally got a chance to change, and got her head in the game. They could worry about the blood issue once the pageant issue was over. When she started descending the stairs and realized that Stefan wasn’t there, she resisted the urge to freak out. Both because he was gone and who knew what he was doing or who he was hurting, and also because she was just about to be stood up in front of the entire town while she was the center of attention. Before she could get too worked up though, Damon was slipping into place at that bottom of the stairs and she found herself able to breathe again. 

Damon’s breath caught in his throat as he watched her walk down, and it hit him like a ton of bricks. The reason he couldn’t say no to her. The reason he worked so hard to protect her. The reason he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her by letting their tryst be found out. Somehow he’d managed to fall in love with her and he hated himself for it as much as he loved her. 

“Where’s Stefan?” she whispered as she took his hand. 

“I don’t know,” he replied, leading her out towards the dance floor gracefully. He was just glad that he knew this dance like the back of his hand. 

“What are we gonna do?” Elena asked worriedly as she curtsied to him at the start of the dance. 

“Right now, we just have to get through this,” he told her, not wanting her to worry about anything else in this moment. As the dance started, he definitely couldn’t worry about anything else. His entire being was consumed with thoughts of her. 

When the part of the dance came when he took her in his arms, Elena was bowled over by the emotion. What she could see in his eyes and what she felt in her heart. Being in his arms felt so natural. Easy. Perfect. They moved around the dance floor almost as one being and she was astounded at his skill and grace. While part of her was freaking out at the realization that she was falling for him, most of her knew that this wasn’t the time. She would let herself feel it, immerse herself in it, for this one song. That was it. Then it would be over and she could put all those feelings in a little box to never be opened again. She was getting very good at lying to herself. 

As soon as the dance was over, they split up, both needing some space from the emotions and realizations while they tried to find Stefan and make sure that he…and everyone else…was okay. They did end up finding him, thankfully before he killed anyone, but both Elena and Bonnie who had followed them, were more than a little shaken up. Damon would have tried to cover it up, but the sheriff came out too soon so he had to settle for compelling Amber to forget what happened and thought up a story on the spot of Elena and Bonnie finding her and calling him. 

Elena found herself and Bonnie ushered back to the party just in time for the crowning of Miss Mystic Falls which ended up being Caroline, much to no one’s surprise. They had to stick around for a little while longer before Elena was free to take off. She headed straight for the Salvatore house where Damon, after a little argument about her safety, gave her a vampire tranquilizer dart and let her go up to Stefan. 

Once he was secure in the cell, Elena had enough and nearly crumpled to sit on the floor, surprised when Damon sat across from her. On the filthy uncomfortable floor while still wearing most of his fancy tux. At least Elena had changed back into her everyday clothes. “You gonna be okay?” Damon asked her gently. 

“Yeah. I will be. I just…need a minute.” 

“Okay,” Damon said understandingly. “But if you need to talk…”

“Thank you, Damon,” she smiled gratefully at him. No more words were exchanged until she went to get up, but Damon was on his feet first and reached down to help her up. “Do you mind if I stay here tonight? I just don’t want to leave him like this.”

“Here as in down here?” Damon asked with a wrinkle of his nose. 

“No,” Elena couldn’t help but chuckle. “In Stefan’s room.” She didn’t usually ask, obviously, but staying while Stefan was incapacitated just seemed weird enough that it should be asked. 

“Oh. Well in that case…sure. Why not. Mi casa es su casa. As always,” he grinned, stepping aside and waving his arm for her to go up the stairs first. Mostly because he loved the look of her ass in those jeans. 

It was a few hours later before Elena gave up on her tossing and turning and found herself heading down to Damon’s room still wearing her tank top and underwear. She knocked lightly on the door and heard a mumble that she couldn’t quite make out, but she thought he said to come in, so she did. “Sorry I woke you up,” she said apologetically. 

“S’okay,” Damon slurred as he rolled towards her. “S’up?” 

“I can’t sleep,” she told him, biting her lip nervously.

“So you came to brighten my bed with your presence?” he chuckled. “How kind of you.” 

Elena couldn’t help but huff a laugh. “I was hoping…maybe…some blood might help?” 

“Well I’m not getting up, so you’ll have to come here,” he smirked, ignoring the way the very thought of it made all his nerves stand on end. Her in his bed, them barely dressed, with the way this normally goes…it was both a dream come true and a nightmare rolled into one. After his revelations earlier tonight, he knew he was being just as much of a sucker as he had been with Katherine, but he couldn’t stop himself. He never could. Every moment he could steal with her would be worth all the heartache that followed. 

“Are you wearing anything under there?” she asked nervously, already walking towards the bed. 

“Underwear, yeah,” he told her, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t ask him to put more on. 

“Okay then,” she smiled, climbing into bed as he lifted the blanket for her. 

He rolled towards her, propped up on his elbow and leaned over her, reaching out to brush her hair back from her face. “Are you sure you want this?” he whispered, no idea which answer he would prefer. To save his heart would mean to lose this chance. 

“One last time,” she lied with a nod.

“One last time,” he allowed the lie just as he allowed all the others. As he would always allow her lies.


	10. Chapter 10

He still gave her another moment to change her mind before sliding over top of her and breathlessly kissing over her shoulder before sinking his teeth into her neck. She immediately wrapped her legs around his waist and lifted her hips, allowing his length to press against her with much less fabric in the way than usual. Just the idea of having her in his bed like this had him more than ready to go even before the first taste of blood so he just moaned against her neck as a hand slid down her body. 

Elena’s breath was all but stolen from her body at the first bite, as it usually was and she already felt the heat pooling in her belly. As she lifted her hips to meet him, she realized how much different it felt with so little in the way and just how much his jeans hid. He was even bigger than she thought, which was saying a lot, and she couldn’t help her own moan as her hands explored the almost naked body on top of her. 

Damon could feel the fire burning over his skin in the wake of every touch of her hands, her arms…everywhere skin met skin was on fire in the best possible way as he rolled his hips tightly against her core, able to feel her wetness as well as smell it this time. He could feel his cock straining the front of his boxer briefs and the movement and friction didn’t take long to work it free. He let out a whimpering moan as the last barrier between them was her thin silk panties and he couldn’t stop his hand on her stomach from trailing further down and sliding them to the side. The feel of sliding inside her was pure bliss and for a moment he couldn’t breathe and even stopped drinking. 

Elena didn’t realize what was happening until she felt him press into her, stretching her open. “D-Damon…” she breathed out nervously. 

“Shh,” he whispered desperately against her neck. “Please, baby…don’t ask me to stop,” he begged. “I will if you want, but please…” 

Elena’s body was echoing his words, but she couldn’t actually get out the words to tell him to keep going either, so she just lifted her hips in invitation as she guided his lips back to her neck. As he moved in her, keeping a slow steady rhythm and matched his sucks to her neck to that rhythm, all thoughts of can’t and shouldn’t flew from her mind and all that mattered was the here and now. It wasn’t long before his tongue was cleaning up her neck and he was kissing her deeply before pulling a cut in his own neck. 

When Damon felt her drinking his blood, it drove him even higher into the ecstasy as his thrusts turned faster and harder, slamming his cock into her tight heat and forcing himself not to cum yet because once he did this would be over. His hand slid up under her tank top, gripping her breast tightly as he made himself slow back down. This would probably be the only time he would ever get to experience this. After this she might actually follow through on her promise of this being the last time. Even if she didn’t, she would probably at least make sure this much didn’t happen again. He had to make it count. 

Elena’s hands gripped his shoulders tightly as her back arched, wondering what the hell he was doing to her. She had never felt so amazing in her life and it was so overwhelming, but she never wanted it to end. Her nails dragged over his shoulder blades as her hips met him thrust for thrust and she continued to drink from his neck right up until he pulled away and his lips attacked hers again. He pulled her up effortlessly to a sitting position, still thrusting up into her as his lips and teeth and tongue trailed down her neck and collarbones to her chest. When his hand worked one of her breasts out of her top and his lips latched onto it, Elena threw her head back with a choked moan, gripping his hair tightly and fully trusting his arm around her back not to let her fall. 

When Damon could tell they were both getting close he laid her back down, slipping out of her in the process, pulling whimpers from them both, but he quickly slid her panties to the side again and plunged back in, setting a quick hard pace as they both chased that edge. “Oh…god…’Lena…” Damon gasped out as he felt himself cresting, and it was only a moment later before she cried out his name as her walls clenched around him and then he was spilling himself inside her for the first and probably only time. 

The second the waves of pleasure stopped, Elena pushed him back and squirmed away, but she didn’t leave his bed, so he chalked that up to a win as he collapsed onto his back, trying to catch his breath. “I’m sorry, Elena,” he whispered after a long moment of silence and reached for her hand. “I lost control. I shouldn’t have…”

“We both lost control, Damon,” she reassured him. “Just like we always do. It wasn’t just you.” Just the fact that he’d offered to stop even as he was begging her not to ask him proved that he wouldn’t have forced anything. “If anyone is at fault here, it’s me. I’m the one who keeps coming to you, knowing what happens when I do,” she admitted. “This can’t happen again.” 

“I know,” he replied softly and this time he almost believed it. He still couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Stay?” 

“I don’t know…” she bit her lip indecisively.

“Nothing else will happen, Elena. You have my word. It’s just a friend being here for another friend who can’t sleep,” he promised. He just needed one night. To have her in his arms. To be able to pretend that she was truly his. Just one night of fantasy before the real world tore him apart again. 

“Okay,” she breathed out. “But I’m holding you to your promise.” He nodded solemnly and held out his arms for her and she smiled and moved over, resting her head on his chest and draping her arm over his stomach, letting him hold her. She didn’t want to admit how comfortable she felt in his arms. It was so much different than with Stefan. Everything was so much different than with Stefan. She loved Stefan with a pure steady dependable kind of love, but Damon…he was passion. Adventure. Danger. He was the very definition of a free spirit. A ‘walk away Joe’ Bree had called him. Damon couldn’t be tamed and anyone trying would end up heartbroken. 

Stefan was good for her and to her and he always would be. She couldn’t let her newfound feelings for Damon mess that up. But she could have tonight. The damage was already done, so she could give herself this much. Tomorrow they would be friends again and that was where it would stay from now on. No matter how at home she felt in his embrace. It wasn’t long before she drifted off to sleep, safe in his arms, and when she woke up she was still there. 

“Good morning,” Damon said softly, resisting the urge to kiss her. 

“Morning,” she muttered, turning her face into his chest with a blush. 

He chuckled softly and hugged her to him tighter, breathing in her scent, before he let her go. “We should get up, get showered, and go check on Stefan.” 

Elena nodded, once again pushing away the crushing guilt at the thought of her boyfriend. The wonderful loving supportive boyfriend that was locked up downstairs while she was up here sleeping with his brother and finding comfort in his arms. “Wait…he couldn’t hear…last night…” she suddenly started to panic. She knew how good vampire hearing was and that they could usually hear anywhere in the house.

“Hey, shh. Relax,” Damon rubbed her arms. “He couldn’t hear a thing. Even with the human blood. That level is far enough underground and heavily insulated enough that it’s completely cut off from the rest of the house. Even with vampire hearing. I wouldn’t have taken that risk otherwise.” 

Elena let out a heavy breath of relief and leaned back against his chest. “Okay. Good. Thank you.” 

“Anytime, Elena,” he smiled, leaning forward to rest his chin on her shoulder for a second before moving away and getting up. “If you want to use my shower, you’re welcome to go first,” he offered. 

“No, it’s fine. I’ll go upstairs and use Stefan’s,” she told him, pulling herself away from her perusal of his room. She’d never been in here before and it was so dark last night that she couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t anything like she would have expected from him. The biggest surprise was the piles of books stacked around the room. They did have a library that all these books could go in, but apparently, he wanted to keep these ones close for some reason. She might have wondered if they were just stored here as overflow except for the one on the nightstand with a bookmark in it. She wouldn’t have pegged Damon for a reader. She didn’t notice Damon nod before he headed to the bathroom and closed the door. It wasn’t until she heard the water start that she pulled herself away from reading as many of the spines as she could see from her position and headed upstairs for her own shower. 

Damon waited a moment for her to leave, but when she didn’t he made his escape to the bathroom, closing the door behind him and taking a minute to lean back against it and try to control the overwhelming emotions slamming into him. What he’d thought he felt for Katherine was just the tip of the iceberg apparently and he had spent a century and a half pining for her. What the hell was Elena going to do to him? How many times and in how many ways would she be able to rip him apart before his heart finally had enough? How could he let himself be so stupid as to fall for this crap again? He took a deep breath before pulling himself away from the door and over to the shower. There was no point wallowing. It was what it was. He could be her friend and that’s all he would be. Other than their weird blood obsession lapses in judgement, that it seemed like neither of them could stay away from.


	11. Chapter 11

Over the next few days while Stefan was locked up, Elena actually started feeling pretty decent about her life. She and Damon had settled into a relatively solid, though rather domestic friendship while she stayed there to help take care of him and she had managed to resist his blood and his bed despite their near constant contact. As such, it caught her off guard more than a little when they got in a fight. It started perfectly normally. Damon came home from running an errand and teased, “God…you’re still here?” 

“Were you expecting anything else?” Elena joked back. 

Damon came over and lifted her feet off the couch and sat under them, resting his arms on her ankles as he said, “Nope.” 

“How was the errand?” she asked. 

“Futile. Though I think I witnessed the teacher having an existential crisis…Stefan eaten yet?” Damon asked. 

“I thought you didn’t care,” Elena smirked. She hadn’t fallen for that line from the start. 

“Chalk it up to morbid curiosity,” Damon quipped. 

“I think he’s getting there. But he has a lot of guilt that he has to deal with,” Elena sighed. “And it doesn’t help that you’ve spent the last hundred and forty five years punishing him for Katherine getting caught.” She wanted him to know that she knew the story now, so that was as good a way as any. 

“So this is my fault now?” Damon asked hurt. 

“No, it’s no one’s fault, Damon,” she told him. That hadn’t been where she was going with that at all. “I’m just saying you’re not exactly innocent. You’ve made it your life’s mission to make him miserable,” she still had to get that out there though. She started to think that she had the wrong idea at the dumbfounded look on his face as he looking back and forth between her and the stairs to the basement before he got up. 

“Let me ask you a question. In all this soul-searching and cleansing of the demons of Stefan’s past, did you ever manage to get the rest of the story?” he asked angrily. 

Elena was really regretting bringing that up now. “He said there was more…”

“Yeah. That’s an understatement,” Damon snapped as he turned to walk away. 

“Damon!” she called after him, putting her journal on the couch and getting up to chase him. “Damon,” she said again, grabbing his arm to turn him around to look at her. “Tell me.” She really should have asked for his side of the story from the start before leveling accusations. He deserved better than that from her after everything they’d been through. 

“Fine. You want to know? I’m guessing you left off with Katherine being captured and us being killed, yes?” Elena nodded. “Well after that, Stefan and I made a pact. We weren’t going to turn. We weren’t going to complete the transition. We were just going to let ourselves die. Side by side. Like brothers rather than monsters. The next thing I know, he’s slipped off somewhere and I’m alone and dying. Then he comes back, with a compelled girl trailing behind him. He turned anyway.”

“So you think he made the decision for both of you?” Elena guessed. 

“He DID make the decision for both of us. I begged him not to. Told him I didn’t want it. I was almost dead and he was a full strong vampire. I tried to fight him but I couldn’t. I was too weak. I could barely stand but I tried to walk away. He grabbed me by the throat and forced the blood down, so hell yes I promised him an eternity of misery and you do NOT get to judge me for it.” 

“Oh god,” Elena gasped, covering her mouth. “I-I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” 

Damon huffed and brushed by her, heading for the booze. He was tired and really didn’t want to deal with this tonight. After his first drink, he managed to calm down a bit and said, without turning to look at her, “From the moment Stefan had his first taste of human blood, he was a completely different person. I suppose I should thank him. It’s been a hell of a ride.”

“Oh my god. He said he wanted to die. That’s why he won’t feed. Now I understand why, but…”

“His choice,” Damon said with a shrug as he poured another drink. “If he’s stupid enough to make it, so be it.”

“Okay, don’t do that,” Elena snapped. “Don’t pretend like you don’t care.” She turned and stormed off, heading back downstairs. Now that she understood the reason, maybe she could get through to Stefan. Elena was running back up a minute later. “He’s gone.” 

“You did leave the door open so he could come out when he was ready,” Damon pointed out, already on his third drink. 

“You don’t get it. He’s gone and he left his ring behind,” Elena said pointedly. “The sun will be up in a few hours. Do you have any idea where he would go.”

“If I had to hazard a guess, the place where it all began,” Damon said with a shrug, plopping back onto the couch. He may have not been willing to kill his brother, or let anyone else do so, but if Stefan wanted to end his own life then it was his choice. He wasn’t like Stefan. He wouldn’t take that choice away from him. 

“Which is where, Damon,” Elena snapped irritated.

“The quarry. Opposite the falls,” Damon told her. “Good luck,” he whispered as she walked out the door, knowing she wouldn’t hear him. He was on his second bottle by the time Elena got back, dragging Stefan with her. “Little boy lost,” Damon said sarcastically at the sight of them. He really hated seeing them all happy and together. He’d gotten far too comfortable with Elena the last few days. 

“I’ll meet you upstairs, okay?” Elena told Stefan gently, hugging his arm to her before looking to Damon. “Goodnight, Damon,” she said in a tone that she hoped served as a warning, but she stopped outside the door to listen to their conversation, just to make sure that no one made anything worse. 

“Thank you,” Stefan said as he walked towards the couch. 

“No, Stefan. Thank you. You’re back on Bambi blood and I’m the big badass brother again. All is right in the world.”

“No I mean it. Thank you. For helping her take care of me,” Stefan said seriously as he sat down. 

“You brood too much,” Damon snapped. “Everything on this planet is not your fault. My actions, what I do, it’s not your fault. I own them. They belong to me. You are not allowed to feel my guilt.”

“Do you feel guilt?” Stefan asked him, not knowing that Elena was right outside the door waiting for an answer to the same question. 

“If I wanted to. It’s there,” Damon admitted as he took a drink. When Stefan got up to leave, Damon said, “You know, Emily waited until after I turned to tell me she’d been successful protecting Katherine with her spell. She didn’t want me to know about the tomb. Thought it would impact my decision.”

“She didn’t want either one of us to turn,” Stefan said sadly. “She said it was a curse.”

“Witches,” Damon scoffed. “Judgy little things.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Stefan asked. 

“Because I didn’t want you to know,” Damon said shortly. “Because I hated you and I still do.” 

“I know,” Stefan said sadly. 

“But not because you forced me to turn,” Damon told him. 

“Then why?” Stefan asked curiously. 

“Because she turned you,” Damon said as he got up and stalked towards him. “It was just supposed to be me, Stefan. Just me.” He walked out of the room, unable to have that conversation anymore. History always had to repeat itself. Everyone always chose Stefan. He worshipped the ground Katherine walked on and she couldn’t let go of Stefan, and now it was the same with Elena. He could never have anything that made him happy. Not without Stefan there to ruin it. That was the real reason he promised him an eternity of misery. The reason that he couldn’t tell anyone. The reason he would take to his grave because it wasn’t like anyone would care anyway. 

Elena was glad that Damon went out a different door than the one she was standing by and she darted up the stairs before Stefan recovered from the shot Damon had just thrown and followed her. God, how much damage had Katherine done to them. She had caused this whole thing. Damon had told Stefan off about not taking responsibility for his actions and he was right, but he wasn’t right that they were all his. It was all because of Katherine. Every bit of it. When Stefan joined her, she pulled him into a long comforting kiss before taking him to bed. He deserved to feel loved tonight.


	12. Chapter 12

They didn’t even get a day to rest before the next disaster when Isobel showed up in town demanding to see Elena or she would go on a killing spree. Elena was part touched and part horrified when Damon insisted that it should be Elena’s choice, killing spree or not. She couldn’t let that happen, but more than that, she needed to meet her birth mother, at least once, or she would always regret it. She was more than a little disappointed at what she found though. 

Damon wasn’t disappointed. He was livid. He went and tracked Isobel down and put the fear of himself into her and sent a message to Katherine at the same time. No one threatened Elena and got away with it. No one. When Elena came to him and asked for the device, he said no. Of course he did. That thing could kill him. When she begged him to trust her though, gave him those doe eyes, he didn’t have much choice. He just sighed and handed it over. He still wasn’t going to let Isobel meet with Elena without him present to cut her down if she tried something. Isobel spilling the fact that he was in love with her was a low blow, and one that he wasn’t expecting, but he just took it in stride, like he did everything else, while inside he was seething. With any luck, Elena would just think she was full of shit. 

Unfortunately, his brother knew him far too well and he knew that Stefan believed her, which was why he plastered his annoyingly cheerful mask on when he heard Stefan walk through the door. “Want one?” he asked as he poured a drink. When Stefan didn’t reply, he knew this was gonna be good. “Say it. Whatever it is. Purge. Get it out,” he taunted. 

“It’s about what Isobel said,” Stefan told him, leaning in the railing. 

“What about it?” Damon asked with a smirk. 

“Well I know that you and Elena have bonded, and I know that she cares about you and I know that you care about her.”

“Well this is going in an interesting direction,” Damon said amusedly. 

“I’m just concerned about Elena being hurt. She considers you a…a friend,” Stefan told him, walking around to join him in the living room. 

“Same here. Elena’s a very good friend. In fact, she might qualify as my only friend,” Damon said, waiting for Stefan to get to the point. “Is that a problem?” 

“So at the risk of sounding like a um…a jealous boyfriend…”

“Oh there’s no risk. You do,” Damon quipped. 

“History will not be repeating itself where Elena’s concerned,” Stefan said firmly. “You understand what I’m saying?” 

Oh if only he knew, Damon smirked. “Sure,” Damon chuckled turning away. 

Stefan blurred in front of him. “Do you. Understand.” 

“Whatever you say man. I mean, honestly, we’re just friends. And as her friend I wasn’t looking forward to telling her the truth anyway, so I’ll let you do it.” 

“What truth?” Stefan asked, playing along with whatever game Damon was up to for the moment. 

“About John? Because see I know you guys don’t like to keep secrets,” he said as he poured himself another drink, loving the irony of the situation. Those two kept more secrets from each other than he could count, and he was in on most of them. The human blood binge, his and Elena’s extracurricular activities, so much of Stefan’s past that he wouldn’t spill. 

“What are you talking about?” Stefan asked confusedly. 

“Am I the only one around here with the ability to put two and two together?” he asked incredulously before laying it all out. As he left the room, he couldn’t resist one last jab. “And when you do tell Elena…and she needs a friend to talk to about anything…I’m here for her,” he smirked as he headed upstairs. 

It was a few nights later when Elena walked in, having moved past the knocking stage, as Damon was headed upstairs. “Stefan isn’t here,” Damon told her. 

“I know. He told me he was hunting tonight. I was hoping to talk to you.”

“I’m actually pretty busy right now,” Damon told her. 

“Just for a few minutes?” Elena asked hopefully, not wondering what he was doing. He always claimed to be busy when he wanted to avoid things. 

Damon sat down the two drinks he was carrying and sighed, motioning her to sit. “Let’s just get to the point shall we? Are you really here to talk or for blood?” Elena blushed brightly which was enough of an answer for Damon. She didn’t know why she just couldn’t get enough but she just needed it. “Come on then,” Damon waved her into his lap. 

Once she had straddled his lap, Damon wasted no time biting into her neck, feeling the usual lust reaction wash over him and he held her tighter, pressing up against her as her reaction had her grinding down against him. Damon slid a hand in the back of her pants, setting a slower rhythm than usual. He didn’t need to get off right now and if he was perfectly honest, he didn’t want her to either. Once he drank as much as he could from her, he pulled a cut to his neck and gave a moan as she latched on to drink. Once he pulled her away, she kissed him deeply, trying to move faster in his lap, but he held her back. He kissed her back for a long moment before he stopped and eased her off his lap. 

“Wait, where are you going?” Elena asked incredulously. 

“Upstairs, where my company is probably wondering what’s taking me so long to get us drinks,” Damon chuckled. “I told you I was busy.” 

“You…but…” Elena was gearing up for a rant. 

“Before you even /think/ of getting on that high horse, princess, remember that /you/ are sitting here cheating on my brother with me and using me as your personal blood whore,” he smirked. “And while I can accept the situation as it is, you need to accept that sometimes I’m actually busy. And when faced with the option of sitting down here and being rubbed off in my pants like horny teenager and actually spending time with a woman who /welcomes/ my attention…it’s not really a contest.” He reached over and picked up the two drinks he had put down. “So…as always, Elena, mi casa es su casa…stay as long as you like, but I am headed upstairs to enjoy the rest of my evening. Good night, Elena.” 

She was too dumbfounded to say a word as she just watched him go with her jaw on the floor. Had he seriously just…walked away? Just like that? It took a minute for his words to actually register and when they did, she felt even more like shit than ever. He was completely right. She had been about to jump on him about respecting women while she was treating both him and Stefan like garbage. She pushed him away at every turn and she couldn’t blame him for finding someone that actually wanted him. Not that she didn’t. She wanted him so badly, but she couldn’t do that to Stefan. She was already betraying him enough. She couldn’t make it worse. 

Damon stopped at the top of the stairs and leaned his head against the wall, taking a few steadying breaths. That had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, but it was also the most necessary. He had devoted his entire being to Katherine while she played the same game and he refused to do it again. He would retain some measure of his dignity this time even if it killed him. He would give her what she wanted. He could never resist that much. He wasn’t going to let her walk all over him though. Once he collected himself, he stepped back into his bedroom and spent the next two hours making his company scream the rafters down. If Elena had stayed, she might as well know what she’s missing. 

Once Elena had her emotions under control, she settled in to wait for Stefan. She had managed to get caught up on her schoolwork, despite all the supernatural drama, so she was finally able to get to the pleasure book she’d been trying to for two and a half months. The Dracula book that Damon had given her. Even after starting to hang out with vampires, it had never really interested her. Knowing that Damon had been the inspiration for Dracula though made it the most interesting thing she could think of. 

She had already been about halfway through so she was just finishing it when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and managed to spot Damon and Kelly Donovan as they stopped in front of the door, Damon pulling her in by her scarf with a satisfied grin as he looked deep into her eyes. “You got drunk and fell over a table which is how you hurt your neck, but you’re very self-conscious about it so you’re not going to take your scarf off until it heals.” Damon kissed her deeply one more time before sending her on her way.


	13. Chapter 13

As Damon turned around to come grab some drinks, he stopped short at Elena watching him. “You’re still here,” he said as he continued his way to the cart. 

“I’m sorry,” she told him. 

“For?” Damon asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“For…you know…what you said…cheating on Stefan with you and using you like a blood whore or something.” 

Damon shrugged. “I told you, I’m good with it. You don’t owe me any apologies, any more than I owe you any for sleeping with whoever I want.” He plopped down on the couch and pulled her feet into his lap, wanting to change the subject so took a look at what she was reading. “Good book?” 

“Very. But mostly because now I know that you were the inspiration for it,” Elena chuckled. “How much of it is true?” she asked curiously. 

“Half and half,” Damon told her. “I’m not a shapeshifter obviously, though I can control animals. You already know that the way of turning a vampire in the book is wrong. You, of course, know that I have a shadow and can be seen in mirrors. That was all just added to give a little better stealth. Bram thought the super speed was a little too cliché believe it or not,” Damon rolled his eyes. “I can’t affect the weather for the most part, but with a lot of effort I can create a pretty effective fog, but it’s only temporary.” 

“Yeah, I remember the fog,” Elena rolled her eyes. “And the bird…drama queen,” she teased, pulling a laugh from Damon. “But what about all the horrible things Dracula did?” 

“Nuggets of truth blown out of proportion and exaggerated for dramatic effect,” Damon said with a shrug. 

“I can see that,” Elena said simply. She knew that he had a dark past, but Dracula was a true monster. Something that he could never be. “The three wives?”

“I happened to have company, but they were human and never attacked anyone,” Damon told her. “Vampires don’t get married,” he pointed out. 

“How come?” Elena asked curiously. 

“Lots of reasons. Too many vampires gathering in one place…not a good idea and we don’t usually make friends with our food. Plus compulsion is tricky when it comes to public records and getting documentation that can stand up to that kind of scrutiny is even trickier. Most vampires, once they’ve been together long enough, just start referring to themselves as husband and wife and change up their fake ids to match.”

“That makes sense,” Elena admitted and somehow from there the conversation turned to the literary analysis of the book and away from reality versus fantasy, and she was surprised to find that Damon was a lot smarter than he let on. 

Before they could get too deep though, Stefan came in, interrupting the conversation and raising his eyebrow at their position, her leaning back on the arm of the couch with her feet in Damon’s lap. Then he sniffed the air, and narrowed his eyes. “I smell sex.”

“Yes, you do,” Damon smirked. “My company just left for the night about…what? Twenty minutes ago?” he asked Elena. 

“Probably closer to thirty,” she shrugged. “Not sure though.” 

“Feel free to take a closer whiff if you don’t believe me though, brother,” Damon laughed, knowing that it was a catch-22. If he didn’t then he would always wonder and if he did he was proving to Elena that he didn’t trust her. 

“No, I believe you,” Stefan said after a minute and Damon got off the couch and let Stefan took his place, pretending not to notice the way Stefan bumped him to get a good sniff anyway. 

“Well now that you’re here to keep your girlfriend company, I’m going to head to bed. I wore myself out a little bit.”

“Goodnight, Damon,” Stefan told him. He had been able to smell Elena on him, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as another woman that he couldn’t place. Elena’s scent was weak enough that it could have been transferred from a simple hug, so he wasn’t too worried about it. 

Elena considered saying something about him not trusting her, but bit her tongue. It would make her the biggest hypocrite in the world if she did because she couldn’t be trusted. He shouldn’t trust her and she wasn’t going to make things even worse by insisting that he could, so she dropped the subject. She wasn’t sure if Stefan wanting to continue the literary critique was because he was actually interested or because he didn’t like that she and Damon shared it and he didn’t, but she didn’t mind either way. It really brought home the difference between the two brothers though. Damon’s thoughts were insightful. Unique. Went far deeper than the surface. Stefan’s could probably have been regurgitated from any paper written on the topic. That didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy it though. She always enjoyed talking books. 

It wasn’t long before they were headed to bed though. It was already late. Elena’s guilt was just compounded as she couldn’t keep Damon off her mind while she and Stefan were together. Mostly the way he’d had Kelly screaming in pleasure. She enjoyed being with Stefan. It was great. He was great. But the one time she’d been with Damon he’d made her feel more alive than she ever thought possible and that was just with a mostly clothed quickie. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering what he could do if he tried. If she gave him the freedom to not hold back. She knew she couldn’t go there though. She and Damon were done. They were friends and that was it. 

That determination held for almost a week. Stefan had to make a longer hunting trip than usual given the Founder’s Day celebration coming up and the fact that his stock at home was running low. He would be gone for almost a full day. She had done a lot of thinking about what Damon had said and she had realized that she wasn’t being fair to either of them. None of this was fair to either of them, obviously, but she couldn’t just keep using Damon without giving him what he wanted. What they both wanted, if she was honest with herself. She was already damned. There was no point in not taking it all the way. She headed to the boarding house, and when Damon saw her he smirked. 

Damon did his best to hide the pain behind his eyes when Elena showed up and it seemed to work. He was a very good actor when he wanted to be, but she had a tendency to see right through him. Better than most. So hiding anything from her was a definite win. “I take it you’re here for blood since my dear brother is on a scheduled hunting trip?” 

“That and other things,” she told him. “I don’t just like you for your blood, Damon.” She had to make sure that he knew that. 

Damon pushed that thought from his mind. It hardly mattered why she liked him anyway. What mattered was that she didn’t love him. “Well we might as well get the fun part out of the way first,” he chuckled. Just in case Stefan came home early for some reason, he didn’t say. 

When Damon moved over towards the couch and held out a hand in invitation, Elena shook her head. “Upstairs?” she asked hopefully. 

Damon raised an eyebrow curiously, but shrugged and started heading that way. Once they were in his room, he asked, “What is this?” He knew what it looked like, but he was tired of playing her games by ear. He couldn’t help but hope that she would give him the rules this time. 

“I can’t just…jump in your bed Damon,” Elena said, biting her lip nervously. “But…whatever happens…”

Damon got it. She wanted to sleep with him, but she needed the cover of a blood haze to do it. It also meant that he wasn’t going to get to play much, but he could live with that. If she wanted just a quick in and out, then he would give it to her. She needed to earn the full treatment anyway and that wasn’t likely to happen as long as he was just the side piece. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” she breathed out as he walked towards her.

He could tell that it was the same halfhearted attempt she always made after, so he responded the same way. “I know,” he whispered as he sat next to her and brushed her hair back slowly. 

“Then tell me no, Damon. Tell me to leave. Tell me to stop hurting you both,” Elena asked, making a last ditch attempt to make things right because she didn’t have the strength to leave herself. 

“I can’t,” he whispered, pressing a soft kiss to her shoulder, dragging his lips towards her neck. 

“Why not?” 

“Because I’m completely powerless to stop this,” Damon whispered again as she tilted her head to give him access. 

“Why?” she asked again, breathlessly. 

“No.”

“No?” Elena asked. 

Damon paused over her neck long enough to say, “Once we open that can of worms, it can’t be closed again, Elena.” When she didn’t say anything else, he bit into her neck and started to drink.


	14. Chapter 14

Damon laid her back on the bed as he drank and ran his hands over her entire body, testing the waters and she arched into his every touch. He knew that if he didn’t get far enough before they were done drinking that he wouldn’t be likely to get much farther though so he didn’t waste much time before his hands went to the front of her pants to undo them. When he slid his hand inside and could feel how wet she was already, he let out a moan, allowing his fingers to dip into her caressing her sweet spot while his thumb rubbed circles over her clit and she cried his name. He didn’t dare get her too far though. Who knew if she would be up to continue at all once he took her own edge off. He drank as slowly as he could as he slid her pants down and she kicked them off. 

Elena was more than nervous about this, but she wanted it so badly. This would be intentionally crossing the line that they’d crossed accidentally before. He just felt so amazing. Made every nerve in her body come to life in ecstasy. Once her pants were off, his fingers were back inside her and she was in heaven. Her hands went to the front of his shirt, unbuttoning it quickly, and he paused in his ministrations to shrug it off his shoulders before there was something else pressing inside her. Something far larger and even better. She lifted her hips to meet him eagerly as one hand clutched at his bare back and the other gripped his hair, holding his face to her neck as he drank. 

Damon choked a moan as he entered her. All the meaningless sex in the world couldn’t begin to compare to this. Blood haze or not. He slid his hand up the front of her shirt, caressing her breasts and playing with her nipples as he moved slowly within her. It was far longer than he expected before he caught the slight reaction that told him that it was time to stop drinking, and he took his time to clean up her neck with his tongue. Now that there was an opportunity, he tugged her to sitting and started to remove her shirt, and he was thrilled when she let him, and her bra followed it. He finally had her naked underneath him and couldn’t help but take a moment to sit back and enjoy the sight. 

Elena’s hands trailed firmly over his chiseled chest and stomach as he sat up, fire burning in her belly at the way he looked at her. She had never been looked at like that in her life. Stefan looked at her almost like she was a goddess who he was afraid to touch. Damon looked at her like a goddess too, but one that he was absolutely going to fuck into the wall until she forgot her own name. The burning passion in his gaze was almost overwhelming and his hands caressing her body were just as much. It didn’t last long though before he was pulling a cut on his neck and leaning back down to allow her to drink. 

Damon felt Elena nudging him to flip over so he did, whimpering a bit when his cock pulled out of her. Her lips left his neck for a moment, but then were right back before the cut managed to heal as she straddled his lap and lowered herself on his length and they both let out gasping moans. Damon could reach so much more of her body this way and wasted no time exploring every inch with his talented hands, guiding her rhythm with both his hands and the press of his hips as she rode him. “God…’Lena…” he breathed out, completely lost in the moment as she drank from him, driving them both higher and higher. 

Elena had never done this before. Stefan hated being out of control, even like this, but judging from Damon’s reactions she wasn’t bad at it. She let him lead her in this just as effortlessly as he led her on the dance floor. She remembered his reaction to being held down though, despite not liking thinking about that night, so when he pulled her away from his neck, she took both his hands in hers, threaded their fingers together and pressed him back on the bed, pulling a choked moan from him that she swallowed with her lips as she kissed him desperately. 

Damon knew that he wasn’t going to last much longer, especially if she kept holding him down like this, but at least she was right there with him as he panted and moaned and thrust his hips up into her and she met him beat for beat, taking her own kind of control. It wasn’t long before he felt her walls pulsing around him as she cried out his name and pulled his own orgasm from him as her name slipped from his lips too. She let go of his hands and he wrapped his arms around her as she all but collapsed to his chest as his hips continued twitching up into her while they rode out the wave. He couldn’t help but smile when she stayed after it was over and he ran one hand through her hair as the other trailed gently over her back. She didn’t stay long, but she didn’t scamper away immediately. 

Elena just laid there for a long moment, enjoying the feel of being in his arms. Part of her wished it could last forever, but the part of her that still loved Stefan knew that it couldn’t. Then there was the part of her that was still terrified of this, and that was the biggest part. She dragged herself from the comfort of his arms and rolled to the bed next to him. “Do you mind if I use your shower?” she asked. She was hot and sweaty and didn’t want to put her clothes back on to go upstairs. 

“Not at all,” he told her with a twitch of a smile. He didn’t dare ask to join her. He knew what the answer would be. The blood haze was over now and she was Stefan’s again. As it always would be. He laid there for another long moment as the shower ran before he picked up her clothes, folded them neatly and stepped into the bathroom long enough to put them on the counter. Once she stepped out of the bathroom, fully dressed, he slipped in for his own shower. 

He had expected her to be gone when he came back out and was surprised to find her sitting on his bed and looking through his book collection. “See something interesting,” he chuckled. 

“Oh,” she dropped the book she was holding like it scalded her. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snoop.” 

“It’s fine,” he laughed. “I don’t have anything to hide. Not from you.”

“Not from me?” she asked curiously with a grin. 

“Since you know my big secret and won’t freak out at the empty blood bags in the trash and stuff,” he played it off like no big deal. He hadn’t intended to say that and was surprised to find that he actually meant it. 

“So…which of these books is your favorite?” Elena asked. 

“I’m not sure I should tell you,” he partially joked. 

“What happened to not having anything to hide?” she teased. 

“Okay, but you can’t laugh at me,” Damon agreed, a little of his nervousness shining through. 

“Promise,” Elena made a motion of crossing her heart. Damon reached over and moved a few off the top of one of the stacks before picking one up and handing it to her. “Gone With the Wind?” she asked, amusedly, but keeping her promise not to laugh at him. She wouldn’t have laughed at him anyway, but it definitely wasn’t the kind of book she would have expected him to like. “I’ve always wanted to read this one but never got around to it.”

“You can borrow that copy if you want, but I have notes in it so you can’t keep that one,” he offered.

“Thank you,” Elena said brightly. “I promise I’ll take good care of it.” That had sort of been why she asked anyway. She had enjoyed their literary discussion the other night and wanted another one, so why not about his favorite book. 

“What’s your favorite book?” he asked her, same thing in mind. 

“To Kill A Mockingbird,” she answered. 

“That’s a good book,” he agreed. 

“You’ve read it?” she asked, brightening up at that. 

“’Lena I’m a hundred and seventy years old and easily bored. There’s not much I haven’t read,” he chuckled. That sent them off into a tangent about her favorite book and the conversation lasted hours. They ended up downstairs after Damon ordered pizza for dinner and the conversation still continued. There were more than a few arguments and differing opinions, but in the end they always admitted that the other’s point of view had merit even if they disagreed.


	15. Chapter 15

Damon and Elena were still deep in conversation, though the subject matter had shifted and they were currently debating the merits of Ayn Rand and objectivism, when the door opened and Stefan came home. He raised his eyebrow at the sight of the pizza boxes, empty bottle of bourbon and empty two liters of soda stacked on the table and Damon and Elena sitting on opposite ends of the couch, facing each other, knees almost touching as they were so lost in their discussion that they hadn’t even noticed him yet. At least Elena hadn’t. He was sure that Damon had and just didn’t care. It was all but impossible to sneak up on a vampire. He cleared his throat to get their attention. 

“Stefan!” Elena said happily, jumping up to greet him with a kiss. 

Stefan smiled and kissed her back, longer and deeper than she had intended, not wanting to admit that finding her so cozy with Damon bothered him. Especially after learning that Damon was in love with her. “How long have you been here?” he asked lightly, making it seem like no big deal. 

“Oh…um…I’m not sure. Since before dinner obviously,” she chuckled motioning to the mess. “Jeremy is still mad at me and I had to get out of the house and then Damon and I got talking books and lost track of time.” 

Stefan wanted to make a comment about Caroline or Bonnie being better people to hang out with than his borderline psychopathic brother that’s in love with her, but he cut himself off. For all he knew she had tried to hang out with them and they weren’t available. “Well at least you found something to occupy your time,” he settled for. “I’m actually really tired…” he said leadingly. 

“Me too actually. I didn’t realize it was so late. Goodnight Damon,” Elena said throwing a smile back at Damon and not noticing the tightness in his as he returned the sentiment before she followed Stefan back upstairs. 

When his sensitive vampire hearing picked up on the fact that they weren’t actually going to sleep, he grabbed his jacket and left. The last thing he wanted to do right now was sit in this house and listen to them. Not after how perfect his day with her had been. He headed out to the nearest city to trawl at some clubs before they shut down, grab a snack or two, and hopefully end up in someone else’s bed for the night. He needed to get Elena out of his head. At least for a while. He would be back for the parade in the morning, but he needed to get out of here for tonight. 

The next morning, Stefan met him as he got there for the parade and he took some time to tease his brother about stealing her from him, despite the fact that he knew it wouldn’t happen. When Elena came up though his jaw dropped, and not in a good way. With the period look and the hairstyle she looked exactly like Katherine. There were usually enough differences that he could easily keep them separate in his mind, but right now…when he looked at her all he could see was Katherine and he hated it. 

Still, he stuck out the parade, and even toyed with Elena and Stefan a bit during it, but he was more than a little relieved when she changed out of the period garb. “I like you better like this,” he said as he stepped out in front of her at the grill. “The period look, it…didn’t suit you.” 

“Is that an insult?” Elena asked confused. She would have thought he would like it since it was from his era, not making the Katherine connection. 

“Actually, Elena…it is a compliment. Of the highest order,” he replied, surprised that she had taken it as an insult and eager to fix it. 

She got lost in his eyes for a moment and smiled before she pulled herself away with a slight huff. “Look, I know that Stefan is worried about our…friendship…”

“Did he mention something to you too?” Damon asked amusedly. 

Elena looked at him surprised. “No, did he mention something to you?”   
“No,” he said quickly. He was afraid that if she knew just how worried about it Stefan was, then she would stop it. “Nothing worth repeating,” he added, knowing that she hadn’t really bought it. 

“So, we need to be more careful. You should stop with your flirty little comments and that eye thing that you do,” Elena continued. 

“What eye thing?” Damon asked smugly, knowing that he wasn’t entirely doing it on purpose so anything she read into it was on her. Then she poured an entire bucket of cold water on him. 

“Don’t make me regret being your friend,” she said firmly. 

The smile dripped from Damon’s face at that and he gave a curt nod, letting her walk off. He was both hurt and angry. That, after everything, she would all but threaten him like that. It was low. Apparently he was even more of a dirty little secret than he thought, which was why he was surprised that he ended up being saved from the fire, though he had to admit that part of him wished she had let him get put out of his misery already. Still, he might have judged her a bit harshly and he wanted to make up for it. Fix things as much as he could. 

That was what led to him having a heart to heart with Jeremy Gilbert of all people. He had just been intending to make the offer to take away his suffering again, as his choice this time, and leave it at that, but he somehow got dragged into a talk about feelings that led to an honest apology and even an admission…sort of…of the darkest time in his life. By the time he was headed out the door, he was pretty much emotionally rung out and then ended up running into Elena coming home. He hadn’t expected her back so soon. 

“What are you doing here?” Katherine asked confused. Was perfect do-gooder Elena dallying with both brothers too?

“A failed and feeble attempt at doing the right thing,” Damon sighed. 

“Which was…” Katherine asked, trying to get a little more insight into the situation. 

“It’s not important,” Damon said with a twitch of an almost smile. “Let me take this for you.” He grabbed the garment bag from her and set it down. 

“Thank you,” she said nervously, still trying to figure this out. 

“You know, I came to this town wanting to destroy it, and tonight I find myself wanting to protect it…” Damon trailed off as he tried to pin down his train of thought. He always got like this when he was emotional which was usually why he tried to avoid people unless he was going to kill them. “How does that happen?” He took a deep breath. “I’m not a hero, Elena. I don’t do good. It’s not…in me.” 

“Maybe it is,” Katherine took a stab in the dark. The longer she could keep him talking the more she could figure out. 

“No,” Damon shook his head. “No, that’s reserved for my brother…and you, and Bonnie who even though she has every reason to hate me still…helped Stefan save me.”

Ugh, he was in one of his maudlin moods. Katherine sucked it up and remembered her role. “Why do you sound so surprised?” 

“Because she did it for you,” Damon said moving towards her. “Which means that somewhere along the way…you decided I was worth saving and I wanted to…thank you…for that,” Damon said softly. 

“You’re welcome,” Katherine replied, just as softly, not sure how else to respond to that. When Damon leaned forward, she was starting to think that she was right about Elena being with both brothers, but then he kissed her cheek so sweetly it made Katherine want to throw up. She could see how much he loved Elena though and it offered the perfect opportunity to play. She caught his eyes and played coy, throwing out all the miniscule signals that she wanted to kiss him that she knew that he would pick up on. 

Damon could see something different in Elena’s eyes right now. It wasn’t just the lust of blood sharing. It was more and it was like she was beckoning him in. He had never kissed her outside of those moments, but right now he couldn’t stop himself. His lips lightly brushed hers, experimentally…testing the waters, and she responded. She leaned in for more even. His hands went to her cheeks and he kissed her, slow and deep, pouring every unspoken emotion he had into it, and hoping she understood. He was beyond irritated when the door opened and they were interrupted, but he let her go. What else could he do?

Katherine caught herself in a glare when the door to the house was opened and quickly changed it to a sheepish look. It got her an invitation in at least. Well, more like an order, but it still worked. “What are you doing?” the woman asked incredulously as she walked in the door. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Katherine told her, still pissed that she’d been interrupted. There had been so much more she could have played with if she’d had more time. 

Damon stood on the porch for a moment, trying to reboot his brain and partially listening in. When Elena said that she didn’t want to talk about it, he managed to leave. He wanted the answer to that question too. Kissing him on the porch in full view of everyone and now Jenna knew something which meant that it would probably get around eventually and Stefan would find out, so why would she do it? Unless she wanted Stefan to find out. Wanted them over so she could be with him. No, that was stupid. No one ever chose him over Stefan. But what else could it be? He drove himself crazy with that train of thought all the way home.


	16. Chapter 16

Damon hadn’t even gotten in the door yet when his phone rang. He just couldn’t get a break tonight. He got back in his car and headed to the hospital where the sheriff was an emotional wreck. Damon made sure to get the part of the story that he shouldn’t have known and did his best to comfort her before his ears picked up on a conversation around the corner. Elena was here. She must have left her house not long after he did. He heard Bonnie tell Elena that Caroline might not make it and the heartbroken tone to Elena’s voice tugged at him. 

When she asked Bonnie if there was a spell she could do, Damon pushed off the wall. “She doesn’t know how,” Damon said, trying to keep the accusing tone out of his voice. He was still a little pissed that she lied about the Gilbert device and almost got him killed. “Do you?” he asked pointedly. 

“No, I don’t,” Bonnie admitted sadly. 

“No. You don’t. Because it took Emily /years/ to learn a spell like that,” he said a little more accusatorily. She was constantly over-reaching and then trying to cover it up with bravado and even lies and he wasn’t going to let her get away with it this time. He wasn’t going to let her get Elena’s hopes up for a miracle that she wasn’t capable of achieving. Not when there was an easier way. 

“Yeah well I can take down a vampire,” Bonnie taunted. “That spell was easy to learn.”

Damon ignored her posturing and turned to Elena. “I can give Caroline some blood.”

“No,” Elena shook her head instinctively rejecting the idea though she wasn’t sure why. “No way.”

“No, just enough to heal her,” Damon explained, wondering why she was getting all territorial about his blood all of a sudden. “She’ll be safe in the hospital, it’ll be out of her system in a day, she’ll be better, Elena,” he tried to reason with her. 

“Do it,” Bonnie said as Elena kept trying to argue and both heads snapped to look at her in surprise. “This is Caroline, okay? We can’t let her die,” Bonnie pleaded to Elena before turning back to Damon and said again, “Do it.”

“If I do this…you and I…call a truce?” Damon asked smugly hopeful. 

“No,” Bonnie shot him down cold. “But you’ll do it anyway…for Elena,” Bonnie shot him her own smug smirk. 

Damon almost cursed. Did the whole damn world know how he felt about her? He noticed Elena shift uncomfortably at that and he suddenly wondered if Bonnie knew anything about them. Once Bonnie walked off, Damon turned to Elena. “Look, I know this is probably the last thing you wanna do right now, but we should talk about what happened tonight.” 

Her response confused the crap out of him when she started talking about one of the tomb vampires almost killing John. When it devolved into her denying that it ever happened he was pissed. He grabbed her arm as she tried to walk off. “Hey if you want to forget it happened, fine, but I can’t,” he snapped in a whisper only to be interrupted by Jenna /again/. That woman had to have the worst possible timing in the world. It was only when their conversation took a turn for the confused that it dawned on him what happened. “Oh…ugh you gotta be kidding me…” When he noticed their odd looks he just took off. He had a vampire to slowly disembowel. 

Elena raced after him, following him to her house confusedly and she unlocked the door for them to get in. “Stefan? What happened?” she asked worriedly finding him on the floor. 

“Katherine happened,” Damon sneered. When he heard that she had been bragging about fooling one of them, he felt his grip on his temper slipping, but kept it in control. At least for the moment. When Elena pointed out that she had been invited in and asked what to do, the only suggestion Damon had was, “Move.”

“Very helpful. Thank you,” Elena snapped, refusing to consider what had actually happened. Damon had thought that they kissed. On the porch. He must have kissed Katherine. And thought it was her. They had more important things to worry about right now though. 

“Katherine wants you dead, there is zero you can do about it. You will be dead. But you’re not. So clearly she has other plans.” 

“Right and we need to find out what those other plans are and no provoke her in the process,” Stefan pointed out, trying to be the voice of reason but not expecting it to do any good. Damon had turned his hatred onto Katherine and that was never a good thing when dealing with two such volatile people. “What happened tonight when you thought she was Elena?” 

Damon hesitated a long moment, trying to decide how to answer. Telling the truth might end up with other secrets coming out and he wasn’t going to risk throwing Elena under the bus like that. “We talked. I thanked her for wanting to save my life and getting Bonnie to help.” They started trying to figure out how to find out what she wanted and Damon rolled his eyes. “She’s Katherine. She /loves/ to play games and you’re fooling yourself if you think you’re gonna find out what she’s up to before she wants you to know.”

“No Elena’s right. John might know something through Isobel,” Stefan tried to agree with his girlfriend. 

“I’ve got a better idea,” Damon spoke up. “I’m just gonna ignore the bitch.” 

“Is that smart?” 

“If Katherine thinks she’s being ignored it’ll lure her out. She’ll make a move,” Damon said smugly. He knew her better than she thought now that he was able to see her clearly. 

“Yeah? Then what?” Stefan asked pointedly. 

“Stake her. Rip her head off. Something poetic,” Damon said before turning and walking out. It was already morning and he had to be at the Lockwoods later. As frayed as his nerves were at the moment, if he didn’t at least get a nap in first, someone was gonna end up on the menu. 

Damon was more than glad he got a nap in since he ended up playing peacemaker between the sheriff and the mayor’s wife for half the afternoon as guests started arriving to pay their respects. When Elena showed up, he was outside on the porch, getting some air, and he noticed her immediately. She sent Jeremy and Jenna in and headed over to him. “Hey. How are you doing?” she asked. 

“Great, Elena. Walking on sunshine. Thanks for asking,” Damon quipped, genial mask firmly up. 

“Damon,” she said wearily. 

“Elena,” he teased back in the same tone. 

“We should be able to talk about this. We’re close enough now. I really wanna know how you’re doing.” 

Damon resisted the urge to scoff. They’d slept together two days ago. They couldn’t get much ‘closer’ than that. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it and especially not here. It seemed he wasn’t going to get out of it though. “I kissed you. I thought you kissed me back. Doppelganger hijinks ensued. How do you think I’m doing?”

“I think you’re hurt,” Elena said bluntly. 

“Hmm, no. I don’t get hurt Elena,” he said mockingly in a complete lie. She’d done nothing but rip his heart out for the last two months. Not that he would ever admit that to her. He was already pathetic enough keeping it to himself. 

“No, you don’t admit that you get hurt. You get angry to cover it up and then you do something stupid,” she pointed out worriedly. 

“You’re scared,” he taunted. “You think Katherine’s going to send me off the deep end, don’t you? I don’t need her for that.” Not when you’re around, he didn’t say as he started to walk away before he stopped. “You know…why is it such a surprise that I would kiss you?” He just had to know. 

“That’s not a surprise,” Elena admitted, though him doing it on her porch in full view of the world was a surprise. “I’m surprised you thought it was me. I mean…we’ve kissed often enough by now that you should know the difference.”

“Yeah, Elena. We’ve kissed. While lost in the haze of blood-sharing. That’s a very different thing,” he said irritated. 

Elena sucked in a sharp breath as she started to realize what was actually going on here. He didn’t kiss her like that. It must have been something deeper. More meaningful. Meaningful to him definitely. Now she got it. “Damon…” she didn’t get any farther before Bonnie ran up and interrupted them. Apparently Katherine had gone after Stefan and stabbed him. She hadn’t realized that Stefan was even there. She desperately hoped that he had either been too far or too distracted to hear their conversation, but she was sure she would hear about it later if he did and she was already formulating explanations in her mind even as she cleaned him up.


	17. Chapter 17

“You gonna be okay?” Elena asked, trying to figure out what he knew. 

“It’ll heal,” Stefan told her, trying to avoid the subject. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Elena replied worriedly. 

“I was trying to figure her out,” Stefan said, completely ignoring the other subject that he would be taking up with his brother first. “I was…playing along. I let her get to me.” 

“Tried to track her, but she’s gone,” Damon said as he walked back up. “Ooh, cover up Fabio,” he joked. “We got a crazy ex on the loose.” Damon smirked at Elena. “Better watch out. Looks like Katherine’s trying to steal your man.” So he couldn’t resist the dig. Sue him. 

“That’s not what’s happening,” Stefan assured Elena. 

“Isn’t it?” Damon sneered. His only consolation was that he had at least a little bit of Elena that his brother didn’t know about. At least he hadn’t before. Who knew what he heard today?

Elena could feel the tension in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife, so she got up and made her excuses to leave. 

Once they were alone, Damon decided to make a joke out of it. “So what’s it gonna be, huh? Fight to the death? Go ahead. Make your threats. Stake your claim.” He danced around in a boxing stance waiting for it. If Stefan hadn’t heard him and Elena talking then it could just be seen as a joke about the tension in the air. 

“I’m not gonna fight you,” Stefan said evenly, forcing himself to stay calm. If nothing else, Damon was ready for it and he would never get the drop on his brother when he was ready. 

“Why not? I’d fight me,” Damon joked. 

“Katherine is going to play us against each other. We need to stay united against her. So yes, as much as I’d like to kill you, I’m not gonna fight you,” he said seriously. “But we do need to talk.”

“Ugh…fine…talk it is then,” Damon rolled his eyes and dropped his fists. 

“You’ve been blood-sharing with Elena,” Stefan said, getting it all out in the open. “And kissing her during…For how long?” 

“Does it matter?” Damon asked with a smirk. 

“Why? No scratch that…how? I know she would never do that of her own free will. Did you compel her?” Stefan asked suspiciously. 

Of course sweet perfect Elena would never want the big bad brother for anything. She would never go behind her boyfriends back and screw his brother. Damon forced his temper down at that and made himself think realistically. Throwing Elena under the bus wouldn’t get him out of trouble. It would lessen it a bit, but not enough to make it worth it. Not enough to make it worth hurting her and making her life implode. There was only one way he could play this, even if it did make him more of a sucker than ever. “Obviously.” 

“Did you make her sleep with you?” Stefan asked tightly. If the answer was yes he might just have to kill his brother, Katherine be damned. 

“I may be a lot of things, Stefan, but I’m not a rapist,” Damon snapped angrily. 

Stefan couldn’t dispute that. He was relatively certain that Damon wasn’t /that/ much of a monster, but he had to be sure. “Okay. Fine. But how? Her necklace…” 

“I can move faster than she can see. Take it off before she knows I’m there, quick compulsion, put it back on, she remembers nothing,” Damon shrugged with a sneer, thinking this up on the spot. 

“But she remembers what you did,” Stefan pointed out. 

“But not why or why she can’t tell anyone,” Damon forced a smirk. “Rather genius don’t you think?” 

Stefan stepped up close to him and glared. “Listen carefully, brother. It will stop. Now. If you pull this again, I WILL kill you, and don’t think I can’t. I can be patient enough for you to let your guard down. Stay. Away. From. Elena. Got it?” 

“Well the fun is ruined now anyway, isn’t it,” Damon pointed out in irritation. He was most irritated with himself for taking this kind of fall for her. It was sickening, but he just couldn’t help it. When it seemed like Stefan had nothing else to say, he walked off. 

Over the next two weeks, he studiously avoided Elena. Even when Caroline ended up becoming a vampire thanks to Katherine’s sadistic games. Stefan wasn’t home, he made sure not to be either. He should just leave town, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. At least now he could still catch glimpses of her around. If he left then he wouldn’t see her at all. Ever. He was actually very proud of himself for managing to stay away from her. Right up until he got a text message from her. ‘Come over. I need you.’. So much for avoiding her. He was in his car before he could even make the conscious decision to go. 

He decided to play it safe and jump in her window instead of going through the door. If she wasn’t in her room he could go back down and come in the door. Once he got up there, he saw that she wasn’t in the room, but heard retching from the bathroom and the smell of vomit hung heavy in the air, but not heavy enough to overpower her scent underneath it all so he knew that she was the one sick and headed for the bathroom. “Elena?” he asked worriedly, kneeling beside her and running a hand down her back. 

“Damon, thank god,” she moaned, laying her cheek on the toilet seat. “I feel like an idiot. It’s just the stupid flu and I was trying to stick it out like a normal human, but I’m so miserable I think I’m gonna die…”

Damon didn’t need to hear anymore. He knew what she was asking for. He bit his wrist and held it out to her. It was definitely going to be the wrist this time though. At least until he was sure it would make her better. If she was gonna hurl on him he would much rather it be on his arm than all of him. She gave him a grateful look and pulled it to her lips and drank and he could tell an immediate difference. His hand on her back could feel her body temperature shoot down, the color came back to her cheeks, her heart rate levelled off, and the little weight she’d lost filled back in. What he wasn’t expecting was the way her pulling from his wrist affected him just as strongly as from the neck. He used his other hand to pull a cut on his neck instead and she immediately switched as he pulled her to her feet to head back for the bedroom. A communal bathroom in a home of three was not the place for this. 

That thought flew right out of his head when she pressed him against the wall and started fiddling with the front of his pants, pulling a moan from him. She got them open in short order and pulled his already hard cock out, stroking it, and he sucked in a sharp breath. This was the first time she’d touched him like this. “Missed you,” she murmured against his neck and all sense of control fled from him. He had seen that she was just wearing a long t-shirt and he couldn’t hear anyone in the house so he turned them so that she was the one pressed against the wall. His hand slid under her shirt and shoved her underwear down and she immediately kicked them off. 

Damon’s hand gripped under her thigh and she immediately lifted her leg to wrap around his waist, her hands moving up his shirt as he pressed himself up into her. Elena continued sucking the blood from his neck as she moaned at his rough entrance and yanked his head to the side by his hair which just spurred him on faster. When he pulled her away from his neck, she captured his lips in a desperate kiss that he gladly returned before she guided his lips to her neck. 

Damon didn’t need any encouragement to bit into her and begin to drink. Even after all this time he wasn’t sure which he preferred. Drinking from her or her drinking from him. Both turned him on more than he could ever have imagined and the sweet indescribable taste of her blood was offset by the feel of her lips on him. He didn’t even realize how much he was drinking since she hadn’t shown any sign of being affected until she cried out his name as her orgasm washed over her, pulling his from him too. He barely manage to avoid tearing her skin and he retracted his fangs to be on the safe side, pulling her into a searing kiss as they rode out the waves. 

Once they stilled and were catching their breaths, Damon still leaning against her, pinning her to the wall, he breathed out, “Here let me give you a little more blood to heal you up.” There was a reason they usually did this the other way around after all. 

“I’m fine,” she panted out. She didn’t want to risk losing it like that again. It had been too long. When she noticed his skeptical look, she said, “Really. Other than my heart racing from the amazing sex, I feel perfectly normal.”

He narrowed his eyes confusedly, and brushed her hair back from her neck again and traced his fingers over the flawless skin. “You’re right. You’re all healed. But how…”

“Maybe I had so much of your blood in my system that it kept working for a little while,” she shrugged. 

“Maybe…” Damon said skeptically. It wasn’t supposed to work that way, otherwise it would be a lot harder to kill someone to turn them. He didn’t have a better explanation though and she was right that most people didn’t ingest anywhere near the volume of vampire blood that she had. When he heard a car drive up and Jeremy’s voice, he pressed a quick kiss to her lips, whispered, “Jeremy’s home,” and disappeared back through her room and out the window. Elena huffed, having enjoyed his closeness, but just went to jump in the shower. If Jeremy was home then Stefan would probably be coming by to check on her soon so she needed to clean up and just hope that the scent of them in the bathroom would fade.


	18. Chapter 18

While Elena took a shower, she marveled at how good she felt now. She had almost forgotten what it felt like to not be sick. Her headaches had started almost a week ago and just kept getting worse, then the fever two days later and she couldn’t manage to eat even before the nausea hit and she’d been puking her guts out for the last two days. She’d been told that illnesses were hit or miss with the vampire blood unlike injuries so calling Damon had been a last-ditch effort. She had asked Stefan last night, but just got a lecture about how vampire blood wasn’t a cure all and it didn’t always work with illnesses anyway and the immune system needing to fight it off itself and honestly she’d tuned it out after the first few minutes. Thank god for Damon. 

She had just dried off and changed clothes, dropping her old ones in the shower just to be on the safe side, and gotten back into bed, when Stefan came up. “How are you feeling?” he asked her concerned as he came and sat on the edge of the bed. 

“My stomach has settled and I took a shower to wash some of the sick off me but now I’m starving,” she told him, feeling a little guilty for pretending to still be somewhat sick, but what was one more pretend. It wasn’t like she could tell him that she called his brother over to heal her with his blood before he fucked her into the bathroom wall so she was all better now. 

Stefan reached a hand to her forehead and smiled. “Your fever broke,” he told her. “I’ll go get you some soup. I’ll be right back.” He came back a few minutes later with a tray of soup and crackers with a large glass of ice water. As she started to eat, he brushed the hair back from her face. “See? I told you you’d be just fine without my blood.”

Elena gave him a tight smile and kept eating too fast to respond. She had no idea what to even say to that. She was almost getting used to the gnawing feeling of guilt. She wondered for a minute if that was what Damon meant when he said the guilt was there if he let himself feel it. Had he just become so accustomed to it that it didn’t bother him anymore unless he focused on it? She hoped that she would reach that point eventually. 

Once Damon left Elena’s house he was kicking himself. He shouldn’t have let that happen. He should have just given her a sip of blood and then left. He didn’t doubt that Stefan would carry out his threat…at least in some form. A few decades of desiccation was more likely, but that wasn’t pleasant either and he knew even without Stefan pointing it out that he couldn’t be on his guard forever. Hell, Stefan knew where he slept even. He wouldn’t put it past him to dose him while he was out and stick him in the cell and he doubted he would be able to pull the same trick to get out this time. Needless to say, going home right now smelling of Elena and sex, when there was any chance that Stefan was there, was out of the question, so he turned to the only place he knew he could go. 

He knocked on Ric’s apartment door, hoping he was home already, but prepared to break in if needed. He’d driven around for a while aimlessly before heading here so there was a pretty good chance. Just as he was picking the lock, the man in question came up the stairs. “Is there a reason you’re trying to break into my apartment?” 

“Yeah, actually. I need to use your shower and get these clothes washed before I go home.”

“Okay…why?” Ric asked incredulously. “Your shower and washing machine broken?” 

“It’s a long story and not one I plan to share. You gonna help me out or not?” Damon asked wearily. 

“Sure. Why not. I was about to head to the laundromat anyway and I’ll throw you some sweatpants to wear until I get back,” Ric shrugged as he unlocked the door and let them in. 

“Great. Thanks buddy. Now…this shirt needs to be washed in cold water on delicate only and the pants…”

“You’re getting normal wash or you can do it yourself,” Ric interrupted him. 

Damon huffed but nodded. It wasn’t like he had much choice at the moment. He just hoped that one wash wouldn’t ruin them. “At least use fabric softener?” 

“That much I can do,” Ric agreed. He didn’t have any, but there were dispensers there and he could spare a few quarters if Damon was willing to give up his control freak side over his clothes. He threw a pair of sweatpants at Damon and waited outside the bathroom for Damon to toss his clothes out. 

When Ric got back from the laundromat almost two hours later, Damon was lounging on his couch wearing nothing but the sweatpants, and leafing through one of his history books, snorting every so often in amusement. “You find history funny?” Ric asked, tossing his clothes at him. 

“Only when it’s so wrong,” Damon laughed and set the book aside as he got up and headed to the bathroom to change. 

Ric rolled his eyes. “History is written by the victors, Damon. Everyone knows that.” 

“And the idiots,” Damon called back from the bathroom. 

“It’s not like you can fix it,” Ric pointed out.

“But it’s still funny.” Damon came out of the bathroom, redressed but shifting uncomfortably. His clothes felt wrong, but at least they were Elena sex smell free. “Thanks buddy. I owe you one,” Damon said clapping him on the shoulder. “Drinks at the grill?” he suggested, feeling bad for using him and just taking off. 

“Why not,” Ric shrugged and followed him out. “Are you ever going to tell me what all this was about?”

“Maybe someday,” Damon told him. “But not anytime soon.” 

Elena was stuck in bed the rest of the day, despite feeling great, and she was actually glad when Stefan left for once so she didn’t have to pretend anymore. Tomorrow she should be fine to get back to normal. For the most part at least. Now that she was alone, she could turn her mind to Damon. She’d gone over once while Stefan had been out hunting, but Damon wasn’t there. Until she texted him to come over, she hadn’t seen him since the fight involving Katherine at the Lockwoods and there was plenty of stuff going on that he would normally be involved with. Caroline turning into a vampire, the Lockwoods being werewolves, Katherine having her hands in everything. Stefan had mentioned that he’d been helping, but she hadn’t seen him. 

Was Damon avoiding her? If so, why? Was he just sick of her? Was he tired of being used as a ‘blood whore’ as he put it? Did he think that’s all he was to her? She had missed him so much. A lot more than she should have missed a friend after two weeks, but she was beyond that now. She just needed Damon in her life, but she couldn’t even call him because if Stefan wasn’t with her then there was a good chance that he was near Damon. Close enough to hear every word they said. Ugh, vampires were so annoying. 

She realized where her train of thought was going and kicked herself. She was actually getting annoyed with her boyfriend for not being easier to cheat on. What the hell was wrong with her? No, what she needed to do was talk to Damon. In person and in a public place where nothing could happen and Stefan couldn’t get jealous. She was pretty sure that Stefan had something to do with Damon being so noticeably absent in her life. She picked up her phone and texted Damon. ‘Lunch at the grill tomorrow? I miss my friend.’ That should be clear enough. It wasn’t long before she got a text back. ‘Sure 😊 12?” Elena let out a sigh of relief at that and sent back an affirmative. 

When she got to the grill, Damon was already there and she slid into the booth across from him. “Here’s your book. Thanks for the loan,” she said with a grin. 

“I’m surprised you’ve had any time to read what with all the drama going on,” he joked. 

“Drama where you’ve been suspiciously absent,” she said pointedly. 

“What can I say? I’m more of a behind the scenes kinda guy,” Damon shrugged amusedly. 

“No you’re not,” Elena laughed. “You’re the exact opposite of that.” 

“Yeah…well…turning over a new leaf and all.”

“No, you’ve been avoiding me,” she dropped the fun act. “Why?” 

Damon sighed heavily and searched for a true answer that wouldn’t hint at the real truth. “Stefan’s getting suspicious.”

“Does he know something? Did he say something to you?” Elena asked worriedly. 

“It’s not really worth talking about, but we should be perfectly fine here in a public place,” Damon tried to change the subject. 

“That’s why I picked it,” Elena said with a smile. “I missed just being able to talk to you.”

“That’s all you missed?” he teased. 

“Not all, no,” she blushed. “But a big part of it, yeah.” 

“So what did you think of the book?” Damon brought the subject back around and that started a lively discussion that went back and forth between argument, debate, and agreements for the duration of lunch and a few hours after. Occasionally acquaintances walking by would throw in their two cents and Ric even joined them for about half an hour before he left, joking that he didn’t want to be nearby when it came to blows between them. It wasn’t long after that though before Damon went to join Ric at the bar and Elena headed home.


	19. Chapter 19

Damon got the third degree from Stefan who had heard about their lunch/debate, but managed to brush it aside by pointing out that he couldn’t tell either of them who to be friends with and they were in a public place in full view of half the town all day and a good number of those people were on vervain and couldn’t be compelled to think that they were there if they weren’t. Stefan felt like a jealous idiot after Damon’s speech, but what else could he be. Damon admitted that he compelled Elena more than once to take advantage of her and had a way around her vervain necklace. He’d tried to get Elena to start drinking vervain tea, but that was right before she got sick and she was worried that at least part of it had been some kind of reaction to the vervain so she wouldn’t touch the stuff again. He had a right to be worried. 

Damon just headed up to his room with a smug smirk, leaving his little brother in turmoil downstairs as he tried to puzzle his way out of this one. Just because he was letting Stefan call the shots for the moment didn’t mean that he was going to let his brother control him. He was not a dog to be kept on a leash, no matter how hard Stefan tried. He had been playing nice until now, but seeing Elena today, and being with her the day before, had proven to him that he couldn’t do this. He needed her like he needed air. No matter how horrible of an idea it was or how much she inevitably hurt him or even whatever consequences Stefan would throw at him. He couldn’t stay away any longer. 

Over the next week they had a few short meetings here and there, quick conversations in passing, but they hadn’t spent any more real time together until she came by while Stefan was out hunting again. “I know we were supposed to stop this, but…just one more time?” she asked him hopefully. 

“One more time,” his lips quirked as he waved her towards the stairs and waited to see if she would go up or stay in the living room. At least he didn’t have to worry about Katherine tricking him with this, not that she was very good at it at all now that he knew she was around on the lookout. No matter how good an actress Katherine was, she couldn’t fake human blood period, much less the pure bliss of Elena’s blood. 

Elena went up to his room, but didn’t go over to the bed. Instead she turned to look at him. “Do you think…I mean…”

“Just spit it out ‘Lena,” he chuckled. 

“I was just hoping…maybe you could kiss me like you kissed Katherine when you thought she was me. I mean…you said it was very different, so…” 

Damon let out a heavy breath. Of course she would ask for that. Because she enjoys finding new ways to rip his heart out every freaking day. To kiss her with so much love and emotion when she feels nothing for him was not his idea of a good time, but now he would either have to do it or explain why not which was definitely not an option. “Yeah. Okay. I guess I should tell you what you didn’t actually get to hear that night anyway.” 

“Okay,” she agreed, wondering why it mattered. If it was important surely he would have said something before now. 

“I know that Bonnie didn’t save me that night because she wanted to. She did it for you. Because somewhere along the line…you decided I was worth saving, so…thank you,” he said sincerely, meeting her eyes. 

Elena was taken aback at the emotion she could see in his eyes and couldn’t help but reach a hand to his cheek. “You’ve always been worth saving, Damon. It just took me a little while to see that.” She knew that he was talking about the time she argued to have him locked up for what he did to Caroline and what she’d said to him after Vicki. 

So this wouldn’t be as hard as Damon thought. Just like he had that night, he leaned down and kissed her cheek softly and pulled back for a long look in her eyes, making sure she wanted to do this before he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. Just like Katherine had, she leaned into it and kissed him back, but that was where all comparison ended. Kissing her was a thousand times better than Katherine and he was even more lost in it now than he had been then. He could almost even believe that she felt half as much for him as he did for her and he found himself pulling away far sooner than he would have just so that he didn’t fall too deep. “And then Jenna came out,” he said, breathlessly, turning away. 

Elena just stood there for a long moment, unable to form words and she reached up to touch her fingers to her lips, not knowing that Damon had done the same that night. He had been right. That was very different from their usual kisses. That was…pure emotion rather than pure lust. It was…everything. She’d known that she loved Damon for a while now, but she held onto the thought that she still loved Stefan more. That one kiss had shattered that illusion into a million pieces. She couldn’t face all this right now though. She needed time to think. Alone. But right now she just needed Damon. At the very least she could be sure of what she was feeling. Even through the blood haze she was sure that she could figure it out now that she knew what she was looking for. She finally found words, “So…you see the difference now? Between me and her?” 

“Like night and day,” Damon said with a huff of a laugh, managing to put the feelings behind him. When Elena went over and laid down on the bed, Damon sucked in a sharp breath before following her. After the emotional overload of that kiss, doing this was going to kill him, but he needed it just as badly as she did. No matter how much it hurt afterward. He slid over top of her and kissed his way up her shoulder to her neck before biting in and starting to drink. Elena’s back arched and her legs wrapped around him, pulling him tightly to her as she ripped his shirt open. 

It didn’t take long for them both to be naked as he thrust into her, still drinking slowly from her neck as hands roamed passionately over bodies. When he was done drinking, she nudged him to flip over before following and dropping hard on his cock, pulling a guttural moan from him as she kissed him. Damon waited a long moment, until the kiss broke from lack of air before he pulled a cut across his neck and guided her there. As she drank, she moved faster and harder over him and he wasn’t sure how long he was going to end up lasting if she kept that up. 

Once he pulled her away from his neck, she started kissing and nipping her way over his shoulders and to his chest and Damon was in heaven. This was new. Unfortunately it didn’t last long before they both fell over the edge and cried each other’s names as they came. Elena collapsed on Damon’s chest and he wrapped his arms around her and held her there as they came down from their highs. She didn’t move for a long time though and even snuggled into him and he closed his eyes, enjoying the moment. He ran a hand through her hair as she pressed a series of sloppy kisses over his chest before leaning up to kiss his lips slow and deep. It reminded him of the kiss he’d given her before. That wasn’t about sex or lust or desire. That had been all love and devotion and when they needed air he turned away. “You should jump in the shower,” he breathed out, desperately needing some distance right now. 

“Yeah. Okay. Join me?” she suggested nervously. 

Damon swallowed around the lump in his throat as he shook his head. “No, baby. This only works if it’s strictly a blood thing. I can’t…” he trailed off, not sure what to say to make her understand without baring his entire soul to someone who would crush it. If he let himself have this outside of the blood then he would never be able to go back. It would completely destroy him even more than it already was. 

“Right. Yeah. Sorry,” Elena blushed brightly, sliding off of him and heading for the bathroom, holding the tears back until the door closed behind her. She couldn’t believe she had almost let herself believe that there was more to this for him. That he wanted more. She was so stupid. The sting of rejection was ever-present as she took a quick shower, and she didn’t even notice that she was using her brand of shampoo and body wash. By the time she was done, she was just about ready to face him and be normal. 

Once she stepped out, Damon got up, still naked, and headed for the shower, but not before saying, “You should probably go. If Stefan finds you here when he gets back again…”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you…whenever then. Goodnight Damon,” she said sadly before turning to leave as Damon stepped into the still running shower.


	20. Chapter 20

Elena went home and collapsed in her own bed and let the tears fall again. At least he had made his stance clear before she was dumb enough to let on how much she loved him. It seemed like she didn’t have a decision to make after all. Stefan was the only one who wanted her. Every time her mind wandered to Damon after that, she quickly redirected it. She was surprised that no one had said anything about how distracted she was, but then she realized how distracted they all were too. 

Damon had been against leaving Elena out of this plan, but he’d been the only one. It wasn’t that he wanted her at the part and in danger of course. He just thought it would be easier to pull off if she knew what was going on. Otherwise she might decide to come to the party anyway, even if she and Stefan were pretending to be broken up. Unfortunately, he was outvoted and forbidden from mentioning a word to her. At least Ric was on babysitting duty so it might be okay. 

Nope. Not okay. Just as Damon predicted, Elena slipped away anyway, found out what was going on, and confronted them in the middle of the party. On the plus side, at least she was close enough for them to figure out about the linking spell in time to keep from killing Katherine and oh how badly Damon wanted to kill her. They would just have to find another way. Locking her in the tomb was priceless. He’d wanted poetic and it was definitely that. He just would have preferred if poetic meant death too, but desiccation would have to be good enough. Unfortunately, even after the link was broken to Elena, no one wanted to kill her. Since she was out of the way and couldn’t hurt anyone their stupid bleeding hearts got in the way. 

When Damon learned that Elena was missing, he was livid. And terrified. But he was gonna go with livid. When Stefan didn’t ask him for help, he forced his way into helping anyway. No way was anyone going to hurt Elena if he could be there to prevent it. Even if it meant dealing with his snarky brother the whole trip. He didn’t give a flying fuck if Stefan liked his friendship with Elena right now. She needed him and he was going to be there. Period. Though whether Stefan would or not depended on how many more cracks he made about Damon being whipped. Not that he put it that way of course, but the gist was the same. 

Once they got there, Damon was glad that he hadn’t killed his brother. It had taken both of them to take Elijah down, but Elena was okay. Damon almost felt his heart hope for a moment as she was running down the stairs, but as usual it was just a cruel trick. It was Stefan she was looking at. Not him. As she hugged Stefan in thanks, despite the fact that Damon was the one to kill the bastard, he fought the urge to kill his brother too, but he knew that as long as Elena loved him, Stefan was safe from him. When she caught his eye and mouthed her thanks to him too, he couldn’t help but smile, tense though it was he mouthed ‘you’re welcome’ back at her and she kept his eyes for quite a while before she looked away. 

Stefan grabbed Elena in a hug the moment she came down the stairs and immediately noticed a cut on the back of her neck, probably from the grenade she’d thrown. What startled him though was the way it was healing. Almost like a vampire. He could smell her though. She was most definitely human and definitely Elena, so how would she be healing like a vampire. Unless…Damon. He’d never heard of vampire blood sticking around like that, but if she had it often enough and recent enough it was possible. It was the only plausible explanation. Damon was still compelling her to share blood with him. He forced himself not to react. Best not to let on that he knew. It was the only way he would catch Damon off-guard. 

When Elena was running down the stairs, seeing Damon there at the bottom looking like her knight in shining armor, she was headed straight for him, but then Stefan stepped out and she instantly knew that if she went for Damon now, then she would probably lose Stefan, so she detoured and even managed to make it look natural. She closed her eyes at the pain that she could see on Damon’s face and when she opened them again, she caught his eyes and thanked him, begging him to see the truth there. That she loved him too. He didn’t seem to though. 

Once they were in the car, Elena was soon asleep. Between the stress and the fact that her only sleep last night had been drugged, she was exhausted. That meant that the ride home was silent between the brothers too. Neither of them wanted to wake Elena. She didn’t wake up until they got her home and then Damon dropped Stefan off and headed back to that house in the middle of nowhere. He had noticed that Elena didn’t have her necklace and he needed to find it. 

By the time he got back it was late, but he slipped into Elena’s room anyway. When she wasn’t there he sat on the window seat to wait. “Cute pjs,” he smirked at her as she came in. 

“Damon!” she gasped in surprise. “What are you doing here?” she asked worriedly. If there was another emergency right now she was going to opt out of this one. She was way too tired for that. 

“I brought you this,” he said with a smile, holding up her necklace. 

Elena sucked in a sharp breath. “I thought that was gone,” she said softly as she reached for it. “Thank you.” When Damon pulled it back away from her she started getting nervous. If this wasn’t Damon she would be freaking out. “Please give it back.” 

“I just have to say something,” Damon said, taking a few steps towards her. 

“Why do you have to say it with my necklace?” she asked suspiciously, but she could see how nervous, even bordering on afraid, he was. 

“Because what I’m about to say is…probably the most selfish thing I’ve ever said in my life,” he told her, feeling his heart in his throat at the very idea of what he was about to do. 

“Damon, don’t…” she breathed out. She wanted to hear what he had to say, but she didn’t want him to compel her. She wanted to know it. To remember it. Whatever it was. She needed to know him. 

“I just need to say it once. You just need to hear it,” he told her, moving closer and using the more passive version of his compulsion to keep her still and quiet, just long enough for him to get it out. “I love you, Elena,” he said softly. “And it’s because I love you that I can’t say no to you. Or send you away. No matter how much it rips my heart to shreds every time you walk back into Stefan’s arms afterwards. That’s why you can’t know this. You belong with my brother, Elena. He makes you happy. And my feelings can’t get in the way of that. I can’t be selfish with you. So I will always be anything you want or need me to be. I will be by your side in any way you want me. And I will do everything in my power to see you always keep what makes you happy.” 

Elena was practically screaming in her mind the words that couldn’t come out of her mouth. Begging him not to make her forget this. At least let her say something first. Give her the chance to tell him that she loved him too. That she chose him. That she wanted him. But she was held completely immobile by his compulsion. She’d had no idea. No idea that he felt like that. That he loved her so deeply. That he was so selfless. She’d made her choice and now he was going to take it all away from her. When he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead, she could feel a single tear fall from his eye and she wanted nothing more than to make it go away. To make sure he never shed another tear in his life. 

Damon pulled back, and lifted a hand to her cheek. “God I wish you didn’t have to forget this,” he whispered as another tear fell from his eyes. “But you do.” 

Elena reached up and touched her necklace with confusion. That wasn’t there a second ago. She thought it was lost back at the house. Damon or Stefan must have found it and brought it for her, but why would they just put it there and not even say hello. She sighed heavily. She was too tired to worry about it right now. She’d deal with it in the morning. If she remembered. It wasn’t that important anyway.


	21. Chapter 21

The next morning all Elena could think about was what Elijah had said to her yesterday. He had blurred right up to her and sniffed her deeply before looking at her in consternation and irritation. He made a remark about her being human and needing to be protected. Then he’d tried to take her away, but then Damon and Stefan had shown up, and she was just confused. She had been terrified at the time, especially with all Rose’s stories about him and the other originals, but now…she didn’t know what to think. The only thing she could think of was talking to Katherine. Getting the whole story. Trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Part of her thought that she should let it go, but if this Klaus was still going to be after her, she needed to know. She got a few things together and headed for the tomb to meet Caroline. She needed a vampire to open the door and she knew that neither of the Salvatores would ever let her do this. 

Stefan knew from experience that his brother slept deepest just as the sun was coming up, so he set his alarm and waited until then. He crept silently down the stairs, stopping outside Damon’s bedroom door before taking a deep breath and blurring inside, stabbing him with the vervain dart, and blurring back out. He heard his brother sit up and yell and then nothing again, so he crept back in and carried his unconscious body down to the cell. He was going to protect Elena from him if it was the last thing he did. He would revive his brother once Elena had lived a long happy life and died of old age. As he went back upstairs, he closed the basement door, glad that he wouldn’t be able to hear anything from down there. Doing this was hard enough without having to hear Damon’s pleas along with it. He wouldn’t go back down there until the desiccation set in. Even though it meant keeping his blood in the upstairs fridge for a little while. They had few enough visitors not in the know that it should be fine. 

Once that was done, he found Rose in the house with an incredible story which made him late for school. Finding that Elena wasn’t there he got a little worried, even more so when he realized that Caroline was trying to stall him. Finding Elena talking to Katherine had been difficult, but when she told him what Katherine said, he was worried about her. She wasn’t taking it well, so he stayed with her that night, not wanting to bring her back to the boarding house right now with the whole Damon situation. It was a few days before Elena confronted him with questions he didn’t want to answer. 

“Have you seen Damon recently?” she asked, rubbing her forehead with a wince. She’d had a headache for a few days now.

“No, why?” Stefan asked. 

“I’m worried about him. He’s not answering my calls or my texts.”

“You know how Damon is,” Stefan waved it off. “Maybe he’s on a bender or got caught up in a sorority house or something.”

Elena narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. “You’re right. I do know how he is. Which is how I know that when I text him that I’m in danger, he would be here immediately.” 

“Elena, look,” Stefan sighed.

“What do you know, Stefan?” she asked firmly. 

“It’s for his own good. And yours,” Stefan tried to explain. 

“What is?” she asked dangerously. “What are you hiding from me?” 

“Damon is locked in the cell in the basement,” Stefan told her. When she started to get pissed, he added, “He’ll be fine, Elena. He just needs to desiccate for a while…get some perspective…”

“No! You can’t do that! Why would you do that?!” Elena yelled, rushing out of the house and heading for her car to go let him out. 

Stefan sped in front of her before she reached her car. “Because he’s been taking advantage of you, Elena. He’s been hurting you.” 

“No. He hasn’t,” Elena growled. “He hasn’t done anything to me that I haven’t offered.” She didn’t know how Stefan found out or what he thought he knew, but she wasn’t going to let Damon suffer for her mistakes. Period. 

“You just think you offered, Elena. He’s been compelling you,” Stefan said placatingly. 

“No he hasn’t. I remember everything,” she told him. 

“Everything except why you’re doing it or why you can’t tell anyone. He told me himself. That’s what he compelled you to forget,” Stefan explained. 

Elena froze for a minute to think about it. It was possible, except… “My necklace…”

“He can move fast enough to take it off without you even noticing he’s there,” Stefan pointed out. 

Elena remembered a few nights ago when it suddenly appeared without her noticing anything and had to admit that it was plausible. It was true that she had no idea why she craved his blood so much or why she kept going back for more even though she knew she shouldn’t. She also knew she could never tell Stefan, but that was her own choice wasn’t it? Wasn’t all of it her own choice? “I want to hear that from him,” she finally decided. She wasn’t going to take Stefan’s word for it. Not in this. 

“That’s not a good idea,” Stefan told her. 

“I don’t care. I need to know the truth. And I can only get it from him. You’re not going to talk me out of it,” she said firmly. 

Stefan sighed heavily. “Okay. Fine. But I’m going with you. He should be weak enough by now to not be a threat, but I won’t take any chances.”

“How long has he been locked up and starved?” Elena asked horrified. 

“Four days,” Stefan told her. 

“Four…you…he…” Elena took a deep steadying breath before nodding and getting in her car. 

“I can drive you…”

“I’ll drive myself. That way I can leave whenever I want,” she told him shortly. He followed her all the way there and met her at the door. 

Once they were downstairs, she gasped at the sight of Damon and went to open the door. “Elena, don’t,” Stefan stopped her. 

“What happened to he should be weak enough not to be a threat?” Elena snapped. 

“He’s starving and you’re human. Out here you’re safe, but in there…”

“He’s right,” Damon croaked out weakly. “I can’t be certain that I’ll be able to control myself. Don’t come in here ‘Lena. In fact, you shouldn’t be here at all.” Stefan narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Damon. Protecting her was one thing. Being willing to continue starving to protect her was something very different. Stefan knew from experience how much pain Damon must be in right now.

“I need the truth, Damon,” she told him. “Give me that and I’ll go.” Whether he was coming with her would depend on what the truth was. 

“Truth about what?” 

“Stefan said that you compelled me to want the blood sharing and never tell anyone about it.”

Damon closed his eyes weakly. Of course that would come back to bite him in the ass. There was only one thing he could do here. It would be the first time he’d desiccated. Telling the truth would break her and Stefan up. It would hurt her more than his betrayal would. “I did.” 

“Then undo it,” Elena said sternly. 

“What?” both brothers asked. 

“You heard me,” she said to both of them. “If that’s really true, then you can undo the compulsion.” She didn’t believe it for a minute. Damon hadn’t even looked at her when he said it. He didn’t even have his eyes open. Granted, he could just be that tired and weak, but it was more likely that he was trying to cover for her and she wouldn’t have it. Not like this. 

“No,” Damon said firmly. That would undo every compulsion that he’d ever placed on her. Including the one from the night before he ended up in here. 

Elena said the only thing she could think of to force a conclusion here. “I’m still craving your blood, Damon. So badly I can barely stand it. You’re really going to let me live the rest of my life like that while you desiccate down here?” 

Damon tried to think fast. If he had compelled her to want it then undoing the compulsion would save her so much pain, but he hadn’t and he didn’t know how to save her from this. “I can’t,” he admitted. “I’m too weak to do or undo anything.” 

Stefan gritted his teeth, but went to the fridge down the hall and was back a moment later with a bag of blood and tossed it in the bars to land next to where Damon was laying. “There. That won’t get you back to normal, but it’ll give you enough strength for this.” 

Damon couldn’t resist grabbing the blood and guzzling it down. Stefan was right. He still didn’t have much strength at all, but he did have enough to undo compulsions. “The answer is still no.”


	22. Chapter 22

“Damnit Damon!” Elena snapped. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you do this?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Damon said sadly. He barely understood himself, but if this was the price to give her the life she wanted. To make her happy. He would do it. He knew that he had given her the perfect excuse to get out of trouble with Stefan. Why couldn’t she just take it and go? 

“What if we let you out?” Elena asked desperately. 

“Elena…”

“No, Stefan,” she snapped at him before turning back to Damon. “We let you out with the promise that you’ll leave town and never come back.” If that’s what it took to get him out of this then so be it, but he would not desiccate for her sake. 

“No,” Damon said again. If it was just the non-existent compulsions he had to worry about he would take that deal in a second. Even if it was just the first compulsion of when they met in the road, he would take it, but that last compulsion was his doom. He couldn’t let her remember that. 

“What are you hiding, Damon?” Stefan asked suspiciously. There was no way that Damon would pass up that deal. No one would. 

Elena took a deep breath and made a decision. “Then I’ll come in there,” she told him. 

“No you won’t,” Stefan replied quickly. 

“If you don’t let me now, I’ll come back later. You can’t guard this door or me forever,” Elena told him before turning back to Damon. “You either undo the compulsions now or I’ll come in there and give you the option to either undo them or kill me.”

“Elena, please…” Damon begged. He knew her well enough to know that he would do it too. She was just that stubborn. 

“Those are your choices, Damon,” she crossed her arms. 

Damon groaned and dragged himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall as he went to the door. “You’ll have to take off your necklace,” he told her. Once she had and handed it to Stefan he looked into her eyes. “All of my compulsions over you are undone,” he said softly, a tear falling from his eye before he staggered backwards and fell back to the floor, managing to stay on his knees this time at least. 

Elena stumbled a bit too as she was slammed with memories. The first one was a very nice meeting in the road that made her smile and love Damon even more. Then the big one. The one from a few nights ago. When he told her how much he loved her and how much he was willing to give up for her. It was a few minutes for those two memories to play and settle in her mind before her eyes snapped open again and she reached for the door. “Elena, don’t,” Stefan stopped her. 

“He won’t hurt me,” Elena said confidently. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he wouldn’t. Not after seeing that last memory. 

“What do you…” Stefan asked confused. 

“He never compelled me for any of that. Just to forget a couple unrelated conversations,” Elena said. “So either get him some blood or let me in there.” 

“But then why would he admit to it?” Stefan asked confused. 

“Because he was trying to cover for me,” Elena snapped, using his distraction to slam the door open and rush in. 

“Elena, don’t…” Damon said desperately as he realized what she was doing. He’d been knocked for a bit of a loop expending that power when he was so starved so didn’t hear much of the conversation outside. “I did what you asked…please…”

“Shh,” she said gently, lifting his head and putting it to her neck. “It’s okay, Damon. I trust you. Just drink.” 

“I can’t…I won’t be able to stop,” he said fearfully, already feeling his fangs protruding at the source of blood right in front of him. 

“Yes, you will,” she assured him. “Just drink, sweetheart. Please.” 

By the time Damon’s teeth sank into her neck and her eyes fluttered closed at the sensation, Stefan had jolted out of his shock and he rushed forward to save her. “Stefan, don’t,” she said firmly. “It’s fine.” She forced away all thoughts of her arousal, though it wasn’t that difficult with Damon in the state he was in and her boyfriend watching. She just ran her hand soothingly through his hair and rested her head against his. 

Stefan grit his teeth at the sight, but decided to stay back for now. He would intervene when it became necessary. If she was telling the truth about him not compelling her for that, then he’d been punishing the wrong person anyway. He would try to keep her talking and when she started slurring and fading, he would pull Damon off. “What did you mean by covering for you?” 

“He didn’t want to hurt me by causing problems in our relationship so he told you that he compelled me so you would be mad at him instead of me,” Elena told him. “The truth was that /I/ went to /him/. Every time.” 

Damon was drinking a lot faster than usual given his starved state so it didn’t take long at all to drain her too far and when he could hear her heart rate start to slow, he pulled away. “I can’t take any more from you.” 

“I know,” she whispered. “Will you go get him a few blood bags, Stefan? Please?” Stefan nodded curtly and came back with a handful, tossed them in, and turned to go back upstairs. He couldn’t deal with any more of this right now. He needed to think and come to terms with things. 

Damon drained two of the blood bags in a guzzle before he felt halfway normal again. But just halfway. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said softly as he opened another bag. 

“Shouldn’t have done what?” she asked firmly. 

“You should have just told him I compelled you to do it. You still can. Tell him I made you lie or something. A compulsion in a compulsion.”

“Is that even possible?” Elena asked. 

“Not that I know of, but he’ll just think I learned a new trick somewhere or something,” Damon shrugged. “He’ll believe you because he wants to believe you.” 

“And then you’ll get punished for my mistakes,” Elena told him. “Not gonna happen.” 

Damon winced at her calling their time together a mistake. “I can always take the getting out of town deal,” he pointed out. “It was never rescinded.” 

“No, Damon,” she shook her head. “I made my bed. Now I have to lie in it.” Part of her wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but she knew that it would just make what she had to do that much harder. Better that he not know that. 

“You have the chance to undo your mistakes,” he couldn’t help but sneer the last word. 

Elena winced as she realized what he thought, but she didn’t know how to correct him without making all this so much harder. “No, I have the chance to cover things up. There’s a difference. Now come on. You need to get some rest. I know you’ll still be weak for a couple days as you recover.” 

She got up and helped him to his feet and he leaned slightly on her before frowning and stepping back. “You have a fever,” he pointed out. He had been too lost in the starvation to notice when he was feeding on her, but now that he thought back he felt it then too. 

“It’s fine. Probably just a cold. I’ve had a headache for a few days too,” she assured him. 

“No, here,” he said biting into his wrist and offering it.

“No, Damon. You can’t afford to lose any blood right now,” she told him. 

“Just a sip. Enough to heal you,” he told her, biting his wrist again. 

Elena rolled her eyes and took a small sip. “There. All better. Now lets get you to bed.” 

Damon reached out and felt her forehead just to be sure. “Okay then,” he nodded and let her help him up the stairs. They were out of the basement and halfway to the second floor where his room was when he muttered, “Were there always so many stairs here?” 

Elena laughed as she said, “Yes. There were.”

“We should do something about that,” Damon grumbled as they reached the top. 

“Whatever you say,” she said amusedly. Once he was in bed, she leaned over to kiss his forehead. “Get some sleep.” 

“I will,” he said wearily. “You go fix things with my brother. I’ll be fine.” 

Elena opened her mouth to protest before stopping. She didn’t need to give him hope when she would be gone soon. She just reached out and ran a hand through his hair and down his cheek, biting back the words that she wanted so badly to say as he leaned into her touch. “Goodnight, Damon,” she whispered before she headed out of the room.


	23. Chapter 23

Elena walked up to Stefan’s room. She knew that she wasn’t going to be able to fix things. Not really. She didn’t really want things to go back to the way they were anyway. But she didn’t want to die with Stefan hating her at least. If she could just get on halfway decent terms with him, then she would be okay. She was just about to knock on the open doorway when Stefan said, “I guess history does always repeat itself doesn’t it?” without looking up from his journal. 

“I’m sor…”

“Don’t,” Stefan cut her off. “This is hard enough without you compounding it with lies.”

“But I…”

“Once and you can be sorry, Elena. Maybe even twice. But you kept going back. More than a few times. How long has this been going on behind my back?” 

“Since about a week after we opened the tomb,” she admitted. 

“So more than three months. Half the time we’ve been together,” Stefan did the math. “How often?” 

“Do what?” 

“How often were you sharing blood behind my back with my brother? Every day? A few times a week? What?” 

“About once a week. Sometimes a little less,” she said sadly. 

“All those times you were here ‘waiting for me’ when I got back from hunting?” Stefan asked getting a nod from Elena. He wanted to ask what else they had done besides the blood sharing and the kisses they’d mentioned, but he didn’t think he could handle knowing right now. If it was more than that, he was gonna lose it. “You know…when Katherine was stringing us both along…at least she never lied about it or hid anything,” he couldn’t resist saying. 

Elena winced, knowing that he was right. She knew that she’d hurt them both more than she could ever have imagined. Between the confession that she remembered now from Damon and now this…there was no way she could ever make up for it. “I know. I want you to know that I never planned for this to happen. Not really.”

“Then how did it happen, Elena? Enlighten me,” Stefan finally put his pen down and gave her his full attention. 

“When he fed me his blood and threatened to turn me when we got the grimoire, it just tasted so good, but I couldn’t be sure because of everything going on and I didn’t get much, and wondering was driving me crazy so I went to him with a deal. Some of mine for some of his. And then I just…couldn’t stop. Every time I told myself it was the last time, but I just kept coming back. I couldn’t help myself. I never wanted to hurt you.” 

“Vampire blood doesn’t taste that good Elena. Even for blood drinkers,” Stefan said skeptically. 

“I know,” Elena shrugged. “I don’t know why it does to me. We tried to figure it out at first. Whether I’m just weird or he’s just different. We kinda forgot about it after that though.” 

Stefan looked at her curiously before biting his wrist and holding it out to her. “Just an experiment.” 

Elena hesitated a minute before stepping forward and taking a long drink from his wrist before gagging. She barely made it to the trashcan before she was puking it back up. Along with everything she’d eaten today. Her headache came back with a vengeance and then even more blood came up. Stefan was on the verge of panicking when she started puking up her own blood, but before he could get too worked up, Damon was blurring into the room, biting his wrist and putting it in front of Elena’s mouth and she latched on without thinking. “Damon, don’t. That’s what started this in the first place,” Stefan tried to stop him. 

Damon ignored him, already feeling Elena getting better as she leaned back against him and relaxed. He brushed her hair back from her face with a soft, “Shh. It’s okay. There you go.” 

Elena took a few long drinks, feeling much steadier now, before she realized what she was doing. “Damon!” she pulled back and looked at him. “You can’t afford to be losing blood right now. You’re supposed to be sleeping.” 

“I was,” Damon shrugged. “But then you needed me. I’ll have another blood bag before I go back to sleep,” he promised her as he got up and helped her back to her feet. 

No one questioned how Damon knew that Elena needed him. Either the sound or the smell could have alerted him, so a big part of their new puzzle was completely overlooked. Once Damon headed back to his room, Stefan looked at her more curiously than ever. “That doesn’t make sense.” 

“Since when does anything make sense around me,” Elena muttered. 

“Well it’s clearly not something that I could have helped you with and since there’s no way we’re gonna figure it out tonight, you should head home,” Stefan told her dismissively. 

“Okay,” Elena sighed. “Just…I know you’re pissed at me right now, and you have every right to be. And I’m sure you’ll be pissed for a while, but…tell me you don’t hate me, at least?”

“I could never /hate/ you, Elena,” Stefan told her, but that was as far as he could go right now. 

“Okay. Thank you,” she said with a sad smile before walking out. She stopped by Damon’s room and looked in on him, giving a more genuine smile when she saw him sleeping soundly. Her next stop was looking around the downstairs for Rose, finding her in the kitchen. 

She put a finger to her lips and motioned Rose to follow her. Rose did with a confused look, but knew that whatever she wanted to say she obviously didn’t want the other vampires in the house to know about so following her was necessary. Once they were in Elena’s car and driving, Rose said, “Okay we’re far enough away that they can’t hear us. What’s going on?” She didn’t hear any of what went on in the basement, but she heard all the upstairs drama. She was trying to stay out of their business though unless she was specifically told. 

“I need more information on Klaus. Will you take me to talk to Slater?” Elena asked. 

“Sure. We can all go tomorrow or whenever Damon is back on his feet,” Rose told her. 

“No. Just you and me. You know how they are. They’re both too overprotective. They don’t like me around other vampires at all.”

Rose sighed. “Very well,” she agreed. “Just you and me.”

“It’ll be like a girls’ road trip,” Elena grinned. 

Rose couldn’t help but smile at that. It had been far too long since she’d done anything like that. Her ‘road trips’ were usually her running as far and as fast as she could from some danger. Maybe this one would be fun. “Alright. Let’s take your car home and then I’ll go get mine and come pick you up.” She was much more comfortable travelling at night and it was late enough that it would be morning by the time they got there. 

When Rose realized what Elena was planning, she panicked and waited for an opportunity to sneak Elena’s phone. She waffled on which Salvatore to call. The most likely now ex-boyfriend or potential new boyfriend. The deciding factor was the fact that only one of them could heal her if something happened. She wasn’t about to try her blood after the reaction she had to Stefan’s. “’Lena? S’wrong?” she heard Damon’s voice slur sleepily. 

“It’s Rose actually…” she told him what was going on, holding the phone away from her ear at the shouted expletives and he promised to be there as soon as possible. 

Elena thought she’d seen Damon pissed before, but she had been very wrong about that. This was beyond the yelling and snarking pissed that she usually saw. This was the kind of pissed where he went completely cold. She still couldn’t help but fight for her decision though, and when he threatened to break her arm when Elijah came, she wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t. She was sure that if he did, he would heal it after, but still. Rose took off as soon as Elijah got there, but Elena didn’t blame her. She’d expected her to take off as soon as she sent the email in the first place. 

Damon ended up being the one to take her home and he didn’t say a word the whole way. Elena could tell he was still completely wrung out and weak and she hated that he had to come after her. Why couldn’t Rose have just left well enough alone?

Damon seethed the whole way home. Did she think that just because Stefan was pissed at her that no one cared? That she could just throw her life away? No, she knew now how he felt about her. She had that memory back, against his better judgement. His love just wasn’t enough for her. Just like it wasn’t enough for Katherine. Once she lost Stefan, she doesn’t want to live anymore. Well he wasn’t going to just let her die. Stefan would get over it. If she loved him that much, he would forgive her soon enough. She just had to live that long. He wished he could just quit putting himself through this, but he didn’t have it in him. No matter how stupid or naïve it made him…no matter how much of a pushover he was…he loved her with every fiber of his being and he wasn’t about to let her die. Period.


	24. Chapter 24

Neither of them spoke until they got to her porch. “Thank you for bringing me home,” she said, trying to break the ice.

“Well your ride left you. I didn’t want to leave you stranded,” he said tensely. That and he didn’t want to give her another chance to pull a stunt like that.

“She was just scared. She didn’t mean to run,” Elena tried to defend her.

“Yes, she did,” Damon snapped. “She’s been running for five hundred years.”

“I can’t believe Elijah’s still alive. Why do you think he killed those two vampires and then just…let us go?” she tried to get something from him that wasn’t laced with anger.

“If I had a dollar for every time some evil vampire surprised me.” She finally gave up on calming him down and realized it was a lost cause for the night, so she went for the door only for him to grab her arm. “What you did today was incredibly stupid,” he said heatedly.

“Actually, the only thing that was stupid was that I got caught,” she replied in the same tone, trying to pull her arm away from him. “I don’t question why you try so hard to save me. You shouldn’t question why I would try to save you.” She sighed heavily. She didn’t want to fight with Damon. Not right now. He looked like he was about to fall out. “Have a good night, okay?”

“Goodnight Elena,” he said tensely before he turned and left. He desperately hoped that she wouldn’t try anything else stupid before he was up to handling it. He even had a freaking chill. He didn’t even know vampires could get the chills. He did send a quick text to Jeremy letting him know to keep a close eye on Elena and the basics of why and when he got home he grabbed another blood bag before collapsing back into bed. 

When he woke up he had a series of texts from Jeremy letting him know that Elena was still intent on her self-sacrificial plan and that Bonnie had done a spell to trap her in the house. He sent back a thank you for both of them before dragging himself out of bed, not even caring that it was almost noon and he’d slept for a solid sixteen hours, and headed to grab a few blood bags. He would be going through a lot for the next day or two. He stopped short when he saw Stefan sitting in the living room, but gave him a curt nod. 

“I’m not gonna apologize for locking you up. You did that to yourself when you lied to me about the compulsion and I thought I was protecting Elena,” Stefan said bluntly. 

“I know,” Damon told him. “And if our positions were reversed I’d have done the same. That’s why I haven’t killed you for it,” he smirked and headed for the kitchen to at least heat up the blood this time. Maybe it would get rid of this persistent chill. 

Stefan followed him. He had questions he had to ask. “You were willing to accept desiccation to protect her from the consequences of her actions.” 

“Yes,” Damon said simply. 

“Why?” Stefan asked incredulously. 

“You should know the answer to that already,” Damon snapped. “You’ve brought it up often enough.” 

“Because you love her?” Stefan asked and Damon nodded. “And that’s it?”

“And what would you have done to make her happy, brother?” Damon asked pointedly. 

“I don’t know,” Stefan answered honestly. He didn’t think he would have done that though. Not in this situation. Not to cover up her indiscretions. He could no longer have any doubts that Damon really did love her. This was typical for him. He had tried to die when they thought Katherine did. Then he spent almost a century and a half trying to save her. What was a little desiccation when compared to that?

Damon just shook his head at the non-answer and turned to go back upstairs with his now warm blood. He wasn’t quite ready to be up and around, but he couldn’t sleep anymore right now so he was just going to relax with a book and with Stefan being all broody down here, that meant in his room. 

Elena hadn’t seen Damon in two days. Not since he’d brought her home from Richmond and they’d fought. Apparently he and Jeremy had been texting back and forth so she knew that he was okay. At least for the most part. Normally she would have gone over there to talk to him, but she was still on house arrest. Why couldn’t anyone see that she was just trying to save them? If her life was the price for everyone’s was it really so much to pay? 

When she walked out of her room and ran into Elijah, her eyes went wide and she backed away. He was here. In her house. Which meant that he’d been invited in. And she was trapped inside by Bonnie’s spell. She forced down her panic and reminded herself that this was what she wanted, so she took a deep breath and said, “I’m ready if you can get me out of here.”

“You are quite the foolish girl aren’t you?” Elijah said amusedly. 

“Why? Because I’m willing to sacrifice my life to save everyone I love?” Elena asked irritated. 

“No. Because you are foolish enough to believe that by giving yourself up, you’re saving them,” Elijah told her. 

“That’s the deal. Their lives for mine,” Elena said firmly. 

“You misunderstand me,” Elijah told her. “I am not here to negotiate. I am here to tell you that it won’t work. Yes, you are a human doppelganger, but you are soulbound to a vampire. That makes you useless. Should my brother find out, he will kill everyone you love anyway in a fit of anger and then lock you and your vampire lover away…separately of course to keep you alive, and use you as forced breeding stock until you beget another doppelganger that he /can/ use.” 

Elena sucked in a sharp breath. There was so much information in that statement that she couldn’t figure out what to ask first until one word started to stand out. “Soulbound?”

“Yes. Did he not tell you?” Elijah asked confused. 

“No…I don’t think he knows even…what is it?” she asked just as confused. 

“Ah. Yes. Sometimes I forget how young the Salvatores are and that they were abandoned by their sire and never taught,” Elijah realized. 

“I don’t know if I’d call a hundred and seventy young,” Elena tried to joke. 

“My dear, I am more than one thousand years old. Katerina is more than five hundred. Rose-Marie is over seven hundred. A hundred and seventy is a mere child in our world,” Elijah told her amusedly. 

“Oh. Right,” Elena said nervously. “So what is this soulbound thing anyway?” 

Elijah sighed and gave her the basics. “Essentially, when two soulmates exchange large volumes of blood and then consummate their union their souls are bound together for eternity. I would be willing to /loan/ you a book on the subject if you wish.” 

“Yes, please,” Elena said gratefully, trying to wrap her head around the fact that she and Damon were soulmates in the first place much less that they had accidentally bound their souls together forever. “So you’re saying that because of this, none of us will ever be safe?” 

“On the contrary. I am perfectly willing to ensure that my brother never learns of your existence, thus protecting you and all those you care about,” Elijah told her. 

“Why?” Elena asked suspiciously. “What do you want from me in return?” 

“I want you to live your life, Elena,” Elijah told her. “You see, eventually you will have children, who will have children and down the line. Eventually there will be another doppelganger that we can use.”

“But if Damon and I are soulmates and vampires can’t have children…” 

“It will be explained in the book. You will simply need a witch to cast the appropriate spells,” Elijah told her. “Should you be in need of one, you are welcome to contact me and I will get you in touch, but there is no rush. We are a patient species for the most part.” 

“But you still didn’t say why? I mean…if Klaus would make me have babies anyway…what do you get out of it?” 

“I get the satisfaction of knowing that I saved someone from that horrific life,” Elijah told her. “No one deserves to live like that, Elena, and my brother’s cruelty in such matters disgusts even me. He, unlike some, is not known for his patience. As long as you exist and have at least one child, there is hope for another regardless of any intervention.”

“Oh. Well…thank you,” Elena said relieved. 

“You are welcome,” Elijah said with a nod. “I have already erased all trace of your email and any others mentioning you. Those who came after you have already been killed. I will compel any others who know of you to keep the secret of your existence. Here is my card. I’ll see to it that you get your book by the end of the day.” With that he turned and left leaving a shell-shocked Elena behind.


	25. Chapter 25

Elena took a few deep breaths trying to figure out how on earth she was going to fix her life now. She had screwed up so much and hurt so many people, especially Damon. Now that she remembered them, she would never be able to forget his words. ‘No matter how much it rips my heart to shreds every time you walk back into Stefan’s arms afterwards,’ and ‘He makes you happy. And my feelings can’t get in the way of that. I can’t be selfish with you. So I will always be anything you want or need me to be. I will be by your side in any way you want me. And I will do everything in my power to see you always keep what makes you happy.’ 

There was only one thing she could do from here. That was grovel. She took out her phone and sent a text to Damon. She didn’t know how recovered he was and if he was still sleeping a lot so a text message was safer and he could respond when he woke up. ‘I’m sorry, Damon. For everything. I promise I won’t do anything else stupid. Can we talk?’ That done, she went looking for Jeremy, hoping he was home and more importantly that Bonnie was here to take down the stupid spell. Jenna was the only one home though, so she called Bonnie first. After about a dozen promises including one they used to make when they were kids that was super sacred, she finally agreed to come over and take down the spell. Since Jeremy was with her, he would be home soon too so she could apologize to him too. She also owed Rose an apology, but had no idea how to contact her. Maybe once she fixed things with Damon he would have her number. Or Stefan would since they’d been working so closely together for so long. Stefan didn’t want to hear her apologies so she wouldn’t bother there. 

She decided not to tell Damon about the soulbonding thing until she had the book. By then the spell should be down and she could go over and they could read it together. She wanted to tell him that she loved him in person, so she was just in a holding pattern at the moment. It was about an hour before Bonnie and Jeremy got there and both of them made her promise a few more times, with a lot of hugs and apologies, before Bonnie took down the spell. It wasn’t long after that when a messenger brought a small package, and she signed for it and tucked it into her coat. She got a third degree about where she was going, but that was to be expected after all the mess she’d caused. She wouldn’t even be surprised if someone was following her to make sure she went where she said she was going. 

When she got to the Salvatore house, she hesitated on the stoop. Now that she and Stefan were broken up…sort of…which they needed to talk and clarify…was it still okay for her to just go in? Then again, Damon had been the one to always tell her that she was welcome, but was that just because she was with Stefan? Before she could make a decision, the door opened and she saw an almost amused Stefan. “You’re still welcome here, Elena,” he assured her. 

“How did you…”

“I heard your car. And then when you didn’t come in, I just assumed that, given what’s going on with us, you were unsure of your place here,” Stefan told her as they walked inside. 

“Yeah. I kinda was,” she said sheepishly. 

“Even when I’m angry at you, you’re still Damon’s…friend…and vice versa,” Stefan told her. 

“Yeah, about that. We need to talk,” Elena said nervously. She really wanted to do this right this time. Clean break with Stefan before talking to Damon. 

“I can guess what about, but go ahead.”

“I know that we left things with us kinda up in the air, but…in case it’s not understood or whatever…we need to break up,” she said uncomfortably. 

“I agree,” Stefan nodded. “While I allowed Katherine to be with us both, I can’t do that with you. I still love you too much and I will never understand how Damon could stand it with as much as he loved her.” 

“Because all he wanted was for her to be happy even if it couldn’t be with him,” Elena sighed sadly. At Stefan’s curious look, she said, “One of the memories I got back when he undid the compulsions.” 

“Ah. Say no more,” Stefan told her, leaving the please in his head. That was the last thing he wanted to hear right now.

“So…how is Damon? Is he…recovering well?” she asked. 

“He’s almost back to normal,” Stefan told her. “I’m relatively sure he’s still sleeping right now though. It’ll probably take a few days for his sleeping patterns to go back to normal.” 

“That makes sense,” Elena nodded. “I’m gonna…go up and check on him.” Stefan gave her a ‘go ahead’ gesture as he headed for the couch where a book was propped up. 

Elena went upstairs and slipped into Damon’s room, smiling at the sight of him sleeping so peacefully. She bit her lip in indecision for a moment before deciding to go all in. Well, almost all in. She slipped out of her jeans, shoes, jacket, and sweater, putting the book from Elijah on the nightstand, and slipped into bed next to him in her tank top and underwear. When he creaked his eyes open to look at her confusedly, she reached out and brushed a hand down his cheek. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep. I hope you don’t mind if I lay down with you?” 

Damon’s only response was to hold his arm open and she grinned and snuggled to his side. He was back asleep moments later, and Elena just closed her eyes and relished being in his arms. She wasn’t particularly tired, but she still found herself falling asleep not to long after due to the dark, quiet, and being still for so long. 

When Elena woke up it was to a hand trailing through her hair, and she sighed happily, turning to press a sloppy kiss to Damon’s chest. “If this is a dream, don’t you dare wake me up,” he joked. 

Elena laughed and looked up at him. “Not a dream.” 

“I got your text,” he said. “But I figured since you were here next to me it would be more prudent to wait until you wake up and use words rather than replying,” he chuckled. 

“That is more convenient,” she said amusedly. 

“So you wanted to talk?” Damon asked curiously, hoping that this talk wasn’t going to hurt too much. 

“Yeah. I did. I want to say that I’m sorry. And not just for the fight about me trying to get myself killed. About everything. From the first time I asked for your blood on.” 

“Yes. All your mistakes,” he said forcing an even tone. 

“They were only mistakes because of the /way/ I did it,” Elena said, propping herself up on her elbow. “Being with you in the first place wasn’t a mistake.” 

“What are you saying?” Damon asked suspiciously, not daring to let himself hope. 

“I’m saying that…that I love you, Damon,” she said nervously. 

He narrowed his eyes at her. “But you love Stefan too?” he asked, having heard that one before. 

“Stefan was my first love. Some part of me will always love him. But I haven’t been ‘in love’ with him for a while,” she told him. She couldn’t pinpoint when exactly it changed, but it had. Case in point that there hadn’t been any tears with their break-up. 

“In other words, you two broke up so you decided to give me a try?” he guessed, unable to let himself really believe that this was happening. 

“No, Damon. I mean, yes we broke up, but you’re not my second choice.” She knew what he was implying. “I messed everything up and did this all wrong, but I /do/ love you Damon and I should have done this a long time ago.” 

Damon searched her eyes for a long moment before reaching a hand to her cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned into his touch so he took a chance and pulled her towards him, lifting his head to meet her halfway, pouring every emotion in his heart into the kiss and he could feel her respond with equal feeling. When it ended, a smile split across his face. “I love you too, Elena,” he whispered, kissing her again. 

Elena smiled brightly and cuddled into him for another minute before saying, “There’s a lot more we need to talk about, but I would suggest a drink first. It’s kinda big.” 

“If /you’re/ suggesting I have a drink before you drop whatever bombshell this is, I think it would be smart of me to take you up on that,” Damon said nervously, desperately hoping that this wasn’t going to end up being taken away from him already. 

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad,” Elena told him. “At least I don’t think so, anyway. From the little I know about it.” 

“You’re not helping that much,” Damon said with a chuckle, despite the fact that she kinda was. “The little you know?” 

“I have a book,” he grabbed the still wrapped package from the nightstand. “I thought we could figure it all out together.” 

Damon’s lips quirked into a smile at that. “Together then,” he said, leaning over for one more quick kiss before he rolled out of bed. “How about some French toast for breakfast while we figure it out?” he suggested as he slid some pants on and grabbed a shirt. 

Elena put her jeans and sweater from last night back on for now, as she said, “That sounds perfect. I’ve been craving French toast for days.”

“Your cravings must be rubbing off then,” he joked as he headed out. 

Elena’s steps faltered at that, realizing that it might not be as much of a joke as he intended. She wouldn’t know until she read the book. Once they were in the kitchen, the coffee brewing, and Damon at the stove with a glass of bourbon, he said, “Okay, hit me. Tell me what you know and then crack that book open so we can figure out the rest.” 

“Okay. Little lead-up first though as to how I found out what I know.” When he motioned for her to continue she said, “Elijah was in my house yesterday. Aunt Jenna invited him in…”

“What?!” Damon’s head snapped up and he dropped the whisk. 

“It’s fine,” she assured him. “I’m fine and he’s on our side. That’s why he killed the vampires who came to take me and came all the way here to tell me to stop being an idiot.”

“I’m still skeptical, but go on,” Damon said with narrowed eyes as Stefan came in to grab a cup of coffee, clearly wanting to know more about Elijah’s visit. 

Elena paused a moment to consider before deciding it would be best to just rip off the bandaid. They were both vampires and shared a house. He was going to hear about it eventually anyway. “So basically he told me that I can’t be used for the ritual anyway because I’m soulbound.”


	26. Chapter 26

“What the hell is that?” Damon asked. 

Elena took a deep breath before answering. “Here’s what I know, when two soulmates exchange a lot of blood and then…consummate their relationship…it links their souls forever.” 

Stefan’s coffee cup shattered in his hands as he got the gist of what she was saying. “So it wasn’t just sharing blood and a few kisses. You were actually sleeping together.” 

“A few times, yes,” Elena admitted, looking down and focusing on unwrapping the book so she didn’t have to see Stefan’s face. She jumped a bit as she heard the door slam. 

Damon sighed. “Well that went well.”

“I don’t think there was really a better way to do it,” Elena shrugged as she got up to clean up the mess from the coffee cup. 

“Not telling him that part would have been an option,” Damon chuckled. “Or waiting a few days and making it seem like the sex part happened after you two broke up.”

“Except then why would Elijah have told me yesterday about the bond?” Elena pointed out. “No, the time for lying is over. I’m just sorry you got dragged into this mess I made.”

“I’m not,” Damon told her honestly. “I love you, Elena. Mess and all. And it’s not like I mind getting one over on my brother. I’m more worried about your feelings.” 

She decided to ignore part of that and just smiled brightly at him. “I love you too, Damon. And I’m okay. Just a bit of a guilt issue.” She wanted to change that subject. “So, shall we see what the book says?” 

“First off, how do you know we can trust the book?” Damon asked. 

“I don’t yet,” Elena shrugged. “But in lieu of any other options…” Damon nodded in acceptance and motioned for her to continue so she finished unwrapping the book. “Rare Magical Phenomena. Volume Six. By Elijah Mikaelson. Written in…” Elena opened the cover to find the date. “Fifteen sixty two.” 

“So probably trustworthy then,” Damon admitted. 

“Probably,” Elena said. “Let’s see…” she scrolled through the table of contents. “Here we go. Vampire-Human soul bonds. Chapter eight.” 

Damon set a plate down in front of her as he sat down with his own. When she didn’t say anything else, but her facial expression kept changing, Damon nudged her. “Either read aloud or summarize for me.” 

“Right. Sorry. So basically our souls are merged now, which mean that I’ll pick up some vampire traits and you’ll pick up some human traits, but I’m still completely human and you’re still full vampire.”

“What kind of traits?” 

“Let’s see…I’m immortal now apparently. Not aging. Vampire healing…”

“We’ve seen that in action. It also explains why I’m able to get so much more blood from you when I drink slowly. You’re constantly healing and replenishing it.” 

“That’s a good thing. My emotions are slowly enhancing to match yours. I won’t get the speed or strength or senses though unfortunately.”

“Sorry, baby. Looks like you get to miss out on the good parts.” 

Elena chuckled. “Oh, but there’s a catch…”

“There always is,” Damon muttered. 

“That makes a lot of sense,” Elena said to herself. 

“What does?” he asked impatiently. 

“Apparently my body is now dependent on your blood to sustain itself. Kinda like my own form of bloodlust. You remember when I got so sick before and I called you to heal me?” He nodded. “That wasn’t the flu. My body was shutting down from going so long without your blood.”

“Oh crap. I’m sorry, Elena. I didn’t know…It’s just…Stefan was on my case about it and…”

“It’s fine, Damon. It’s not your fault. None of us knew,” Elena assured him reaching across the table and taking his hand. 

“That’s also why I was feverish and having headaches when we got you out of the cell. It had been too long since I had your blood. ALSO not your fault,” she added before he could apologize for that one too. “The blood from any other vampire is poison to me now, which explains what happened when Stefan let me try his blood. Thank god you were there to heal me.” 

“I don’t even know how I knew,” Damon shrugged. “I woke up from a dead sleep and was on my way to you before I even knew what I was doing.”

“Maybe that has something to do with this too.” 

“Keep reading then,” he teased. 

“Quit interrupting me and I will,” she teased back with a grin. “Another kinda catch…anything that’s immediately fatal to me that wouldn’t be to you, will turn me into a vampire. Things like having my neck snapped, my brain impaled…yeah, I get the gist…skipping the rest of that.” 

“Please do,” Damon said with a wince, not wanting to consider any of those things happening to her. 

“Anything that is also fatal to a vampire will kill me though and since our souls are linked, if one of us dies, we both do.” 

“That’s not good,” Damon said nervously. “There are a lot of people out there that want to kill me.”

“I don’t mind that part. I’d rather not live without you anyway if I can help it,” she told him and moved on quickly before he could argue the point or they would never get through this. “As far as your human traits…you’ll have more of a hunger for human food…”

“Check,” Damon chuckled, gesturing to his almost empty plate. 

“Be more sensitive to temperature fluctuations…not entirely sure what that means,” Elena shrugged. 

“That explains why I’ve been chilly for the last few days.” 

“Well this house is pretty drafty. Why do you think I usually keep a sweater on here,” Elena chuckled. 

“You’ll be able to walk in the sun, but you already have that covered anyway.”

“Maybe, but it’ll be nice not to be a slave to the ring if it gets stolen again,” Damon pointed out. 

“True,” Elena nodded. “And that’s it for your human traits.”

“That’s good. I can live with those at least,” he said as he got up and put the plates in the sink before pulling her to the living room to continue the conversation in comfort. Once they were sitting, he pulled her legs over his lap, and wrapped his arm around her as she leaned against his chest. 

“Moving on…My blood will always give you more of a boost than anyone else’s, but unlike me who can’t drink from any other vampires, you can still drink from anyone.”

“That’s definitely a plus. I’d hate to have to use you like that forever.”

“Why not? I have to use you like that forever,” she pointed out. 

“True, but you only need…what? Once a week? I’d need every day at least.” 

“Good point, but I still don’t mind. I like it remember,” she chuckled. “Which is apparently part of it too. It’s why we’ve been so drawn to each other’s blood since the start.” 

“Anything else?” Damon asked, getting a lot quieter after that. 

“A lot,” she told him, not noticing his dip in mood as involved as she was in the subject. “Your whole waking up when I needed you is part of it yeah. We’ll have a sixth sense for those kinds of things. That explains the pit in my stomach while you were locked up too. I knew something was wrong I just couldn’t place it.” 

“Is that why I had two dozen missed calls and twice as many text messages when I got out?” he chuckled tightly. 

“Yeah, kinda,” she shrugged sheepishly. “Then, depending on the strength of the bond, not quite sure what that means yet, we can get empathy and telepathy…”

“So mind reading?” Damon asked worriedly. 

“It looks like just for broadcasted thoughts, not everything,” Elena explained as she continued reading the passage. 

“Oh good,” Damon gave a relieved sigh as he kissed her head. 

“In certain circumstances a full memory merge can be triggered though,” Elena added. 

“Meaning…” That made Damon more than a little nervous. 

“Meaning I would get all your memories and you would get all mine. It doesn’t say how to trigger it though.” She shrugged and moved on. “There are apparently a few rituals that we can do for other things too. Like…um…”

“Oh this has gotta be good,” Damon teased. “Out with it.”

“Well…there is a ritual that can use me to pull you closer to humanity temporarily. It will make you fully human for about an hour so that we can…have kids,” Elena bit her lip, knowing that bringing up the subject of children within hours of starting a relationship was a bad idea. That explained what Elijah meant though when he mentioned it. 

Elena was pointedly not looking up from the book so missed the way Damon’s eyes lit up at the idea. He realized how uncomfortable she was with it though, so prompted her to move on. “You said a few rituals?” 

“Yeah there are a couple unique healing type things that can only work because of our bond but only between each other. Kinda like transferring life force if one of us is hurt or dying type thing. Then there is one to link us together completely temporarily. Like we experience everything the other experiences. And that’s it.”

“Okay, so how do we break it?” Damon asked seriously.


	27. Chapter 27

“You want to break it?” Elena asked looking up at him, trying to will her heart not to break at that question. 

“Well…yeah. Don’t you?” Damon asked. 

“Why would I want to break it?” 

“Because you didn’t choose me,” Damon pointed out. “You chose Stefan then the universe or fate or whatever pushed me on you with that whole blood dependence thing.” 

Elena set the book aside and turned so that she was straddling his lap and sitting back on his knees as she looked him straight in the eyes. “I /love/ you, Damon and fate and the universe or whatever has no say in that. I chose Stefan before I even knew I’d met you and once I did meet you, you never gave me a chance to choose you.”

“What do you…”

“First you took away the memory of our first meeting. A very nice memory where we had a definite connection. Then, when I realized just how much I loved you, I reached out and you pushed me away.” 

“When did I…” Damon trailed off, trying to remember what she was talking about. 

“I asked you to join me in the shower and you said that we didn’t have anything outside of the blood sharing.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Damon told her, thinking back and seeing how she might have taken it that way. “What I meant was that if we went beyond that it would hurt me too much to see you with Stefan.” 

“I get that now,” she told him. “Now that I have that last memory back from the compulsion. And did you really have to freeze me in place during it? I wanted nothing more than to kiss you and tell you how much I loved you too and beg you not to erase the memory and let me choose you.” 

“Oh…” Damon said sheepishly. “I didn’t even think of that. I just didn’t want you to stop me from saying what I needed to say since you already tried once.”

“I wasn’t trying to stop you from saying it,” she told him. “I was trying to stop you from making me forget it after.” 

“You didn’t even know what I was going to say,” he pointed out. 

“It didn’t matter. I never want to forget a second with you,” she told him. 

“But you had the memories back for days before you found out about the soulbonding thing and you still didn’t choose me.” 

“To protect you,” Elena explained. “Because I thought I was going to die and I didn’t want to hurt you even more when I did.” 

“Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘Better to have loved and lost…’? I would rather have one day with your love than to spend the rest of eternity never knowing what I could have had,” Damon said softly, reaching a hand to her cheek. 

Elena smiled lovingly as she leaned into the touch and he pulled her forward for a sweet kiss. “So yeah. We’ve both made mistakes here, but never think that I don’t love you or wouldn’t choose you if not for the soulbond.” 

“Okay. And in case it wasn’t clear, I would always choose you too,” he said softly with a smile. “But we still have to break it.”

“Why?” Elena was starting to feel like an emotional rollercoaster at this point. 

“Because of the possibility of a full memory merge. We can’t take that risk,” he said seriously. 

“I know that you’ve done a lot of bad things, Damon. It won’t change anything,” she assured him. 

“It’s not just that,” Damon told her. “My entire life has been one nightmare after another. Starting with the abusive father. Then I escape him by joining the army and let me tell you, war is pretty much hell. I came back from the war to find a vampire living in my house using me and my brother as bloodbags before turning us into vampires ourselves. From there it’s a long line of blood and death. I was even held prisoner for a while in the fifties by this group that ‘experimented’ on vampires. For five years, every day, I was conscious and aware as they cut out organs and monitored how fast they grew back, cut out my eyes, chopped off limbs, injected me with horrific diseases, poured acid on me, you name it…and all the while giving me only enough blood to keep me alive and functioning.” Elena had tears streaming down her face by that point and Damon wiped them away with his thumbs. He needed her to understand this though. “When I finally escaped there, I turned my humanity off and went on a killing spree that you couldn’t even imagine for two decades. And even when my humanity was back on, the guilt from that drove me over the edge and it wasn’t that much better. If this memory merge happens, you will experience every agonizing moment.” 

Elena leaned forward and hugged him tightly, burrowing her face into his chest and soaking his shirt with her tears. To think that one person could endure so much and still be as together as he was…it was mind-boggling. She couldn’t even imagine. “I don’t care, Damon,” she sniffled. “I mean, I’m not gonna go trying to make it happen, even if I knew how, but forever with you is more than worth the risk. Forever with you is worth /everything/. And if it does happen, at least then I know you’ll have the memories of growing up loved in a happy home with a great family. That’s worth it too.”

“I still can’t let you go through that,” Damon shook his head as he ran a hand through her hair. 

“Is that the only reason you want to break it?” she asked, sitting back up to look at him nervously. 

He brushed a strand of hair behind her ears and looked her in the eyes earnestly as he said a very clear, “Yes.” 

“Then it’s a moot point anyway, because it can’t be broken.”

“Why even ask then?” 

“Because I wanted to make sure that you didn’t hold back any concerns that we should talk about,” she told him. 

“Okay, miss smarty pants. What about your concerns?” Damon asked smugly. 

“What makes you think I have concerns?” she asked.

“One: This is a permanent commitment here and we’ve been together for either a day or a few months depending on how you count it. If you didn’t have concerns you’d be an idiot and I know you’re not. Two: If you were really that sure of us, you wouldn’t have taken nearly so long to say so. Now come on. Out with it.” 

“Part of the reason I took so long is because you’re scary,” Elena told him before rushing to clarify when she saw the hurt look on his face. “Not that I was afraid of you exactly. What I mean is…you’re not safe…and I’m just making things worse aren’t I. Ugh!” she put her face in her hands as she tried to figure out how to put this. “You’re…wild. Free spirited. Untamed. Being with you was always going to be a leap of faith with no guarantee of a soft landing and that’s terrifying.” 

“You don’t really think there’s any chance in this world that I wouldn’t catch you, do you?” Damon asked gently. 

“I know that you would now, but before…you never seemed like the settling down type. Bree even called you a ‘walk away Joe’.”

Damon laughed and shook his head. “And spending a century and a half chasing someone who treated me like trash means what, exactly? Beyond the fact that I’m a moron and a doormat I mean.” 

“I didn’t think of that,” Elena said sheepishly. 

“Yeah, I cycle through women pretty quickly, but I don’t love them. I don’t love easily, but when I do…I am all in. When I love, baby, it’s forever. Until or unless my heart gets so battered it can’t hold on anymore.” 

Elena kissed him lovingly, not really able to respond to that statement any other way. She vowed then and there to never give him a reason to let go. She knew that she’d already done quite a bit of damage, but she would never do any more. “God, I love you,” she breathed out, resting her forehead against his. 

“I love you, too,” he whispered, brushing a hand down her cheek. “Any other concerns?” 

“Not about us, no,” Elena assured him. 

“What about then?” he asked curiously. 

“Just stupid stuff. Like the whole living forever thing. What happens when people notice I’m not aging? Or when my ID says I’m like three hundred years old? And then the crazy stuff like…I mean, we’re gonna fight. It’s inevitable. What if we’re fighting and I’m not getting any blood from you and I get sick or…”

“Okay, I was gonna just let you exhaust yourself, but I have to stop you there. I don’t care how bad we’re fighting at any point in our lives, there is not a chance in /hell/ that I would let you suffer like that. Even if it’s so bad that I’m on the other side of the world because I can’t stand to be on the same continent as you at the moment, I would overnight you a bottle of blood. Not that I think we’d ever fight /that/ bad of course, but you get what I’m saying.” 

“Yeah. I do,” Elena chuckled. “But that’s why I said stupid stuff. Things that we can figure out in time or that are unreasonable and stuff like that.” 

“Well since we’ve got all the big stuff out of the way, why don’t we take a break from the heavy stuff and just go upstairs and work on the fun stuff,” he smirked with a waggle of his eyebrows. 

Elena laughed and kissed him. “That sounds like a perfect idea.”


	28. Chapter 28

Damon pulled Elena into a long slow kiss as he stood up with her still in his lap. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her upstairs. His hands slid under the back of her shirt as they ascended, but he was nice enough to wait until they were in the room to break the kiss long enough to strip her shirt over her head at the same time she shoved his off his shoulders. He unhooked and tossed her bra just before he laid her down on the bed. Knowing that he could have her for real now…all the way…made him feel like he was on top of the world. As much as he knew they both needed some blood, he wasn’t going there this time. This time was just about them. Their love, not the hazy lust of blood sharing. 

As Damon’s lips and tongue and normal teeth trailed down Elena’s neck and over her collarbones, her breath was already coming quickly. She was starting to realize how much she had missed in the ‘high’ the usually shared while they were doing this. Like just how much love and devotion Damon poured into every kiss. Every caress. Every movement of his body. Her hands wandered through his hair and down his back and arms even as he moved lower and as he pulled her breast into his mouth, her back arched off the bed as she gripped his hair and his arm tightly with a moan of, “Damon…” 

Hearing his name fall from her lips with such reverence and passion was like a dream come true for him. Sure, she had called his name during sex before, but not like that. He seared that moment into his memory, hopefully to be joined by many others in the future, as he moved first to her other breast before continuing his trek down. As he placed slow open mouthed kisses over her stomach and dipped his tongue into her belly button, making her giggle and him grin, his hands were undoing her pants. She lifted her hips allowing him to slide them off. His hands caressed her thighs, easing her legs open as his head moved still lower. God, he wanted to taste her. He’d been longing for this for what felt like forever and took his time to savor the moment. 

She squirmed beneath him, panting for breath as his fingers slowly trailed through her folds before sliding inside her. “Oh…god…Damon…please…” she gasped and begged. Every nerve in her body was on fire and she marveled at how much heat his touch brought with his chilled vampire skin. One of his hands was trailing up over her body as the other one explored her sex and his lips and tongue sensually laved over her inner thighs. One of her hands fisted in the sheets as the other ran over his arm and hand which was the only part of him she could reach at the moment and then she felt his tongue pulling through her wet folds. 

Damon let out a choked moan at his first taste of her and it was just as enticing as her blood, if not more so. He licked and sucked all around, paying particular attention to her clit as she writhed in pleasure, full of breathless moans as his name fell from her lips repeatedly. He could tell she was reaching the end of her tether as he removed his fingers from inside her and replaced them with his tongue, scraping his normal teeth over her clit as he licked her, inside and out. When he felt her tense and start to tremble he rolled his tongue over her sweet spot and she screamed in pleasure, hand fisting in his hair. The pulsing of her walls around his tongue was very nearly his undoing and he continued his ministrations until the wave was over and she went limp as she tried to recover. He spent a little more time licking through her folds and savoring the taste of her before slowly moving back up her body. 

Elena panted for breath, coming down from the most intense orgasm of her life, hands caressing Damon’s body as it came into reach with him sliding slowly up. By the time his lips reached her breasts again she was completely back in the game and she gasped and moaned as he sucked it into his mouth. She felt like he had worshipped every inch of her body in a way she had never dreamed of experiencing. Once he had lathed attention on both of her breasts and continued on his way up, she nudged him to flip over and rolled with him. “My turn,” she breathed out as she began with his neck, and dear god how had she missed how responsive he was before. Almost like he’d been starved for affection, every touch of her hands or her lips pulled a guttural reaction from him. She knew that he’d had a lot of sex, but it was obvious that this was so much different. So much more. 

Damon could scarcely breathe at her attentions. He could almost feel her love wrapping around him and the last vestiges of doubt about her feelings just evaporated. He threw his head back into the pillows as he writhed in pleasure as she moved lower, interspersing plenty of sharp nips to his skin along with her loving kisses and he was in heaven. As much as he hoped this was going where he thought it was, he was in no rush to get there. Despite how badly his erection was aching for attention. This was far more important. He sucked in a sharp breath and gave a moan of, “Yes…’Lena…” as her tongue flicked experimentally over his nipple and at his reaction she did it again more firmly before giving a hard suck with plenty of teeth and he keened beneath her begging for more. 

Elena had never really understood the visceral pleasure gained from nothing more than bringing pleasure to someone else before, but she got it now. His pleasure was just driving hers higher and higher and she couldn’t get enough of this. As she continued down his chest to his stomach, her hands went to his pants and he moaned in anticipation. As she slid his pants down, he kicked them off and she got her first good look at his length as it bobbed against his stomach. She wrapped her hand around it as he bucked up into her grip and she worked up her nerve. She’d never done this before and never imagined herself wanting to so badly. She just wished that she could be half as talented with her mouth as he was. She gave an experimental lick around the tip, tasting his precum, and all of her doubts about doing this disappeared when the barest taste sent a wave of desire straight through her. 

Damon reached down and slid a hand through her hair, desperately hoping she wasn’t going to back out and at that first lick, he gave a guttural moan. “God…’Lena…please…” When her lips wrapped around him and she sucked him into her mouth, his begging turned to cries of ecstasy. He used his hand in her hair to guide her gently, barely having enough presence of mind not to push more than she could take. He could tell she’d never done this before, but he didn’t care. They had forever for practice. The fact that it was happening at all was the only thing that mattered to him and he knew that he wasn’t going to last long like this. 

Elena marveled at his size, not that she had a whole lot to compare it to. She could barely get half of him in her mouth and used her hand to stroke the other half. She let his hand guide her angle and rhythm and as he fell more to pieces her own desire built to a fever pitch as well. As much as part of her wanted to forget this and just have him inside her right this second, she wanted to taste him. She /needed/ to taste him. She heard him breathe out, “God…baby…I’m close…” in warning as his hand loosened in her hair to give her a chance to move away. She wasn’t about to go anywhere though and just increased her pace, taking him as deeply as she could manage, sucking and licking and when he shouted her name as the salty liquid hit her tongue she tried to swallow as much as she could. The force of it made her choke a bit and she pulled away for a second, but when she managed to collect herself, he was still going and then he was right back in her mouth as she continued sucking down everything he spilled, a little more prepared this time. 

Damon gasped for breath as the intensity of the orgasm took him off guard. He wasn’t surprised that she choked at first, but was impressed with her recovery and let out a choked moan as she took him back in her mouth and sucked him through the remainder of the wave. When she started licking up over his stomach, getting all the cum she had missed, he had never been so glad of the vampire recovery period because by the time her lips were on his again, he was ready for more. The taste of them in each other’s mouths, mingling with their kiss was even more intoxicating than the mix of their blood that way and his hands on her hips guided her down on his cock. 

Elena moaned at his entrance, feeling like she’d been waiting for this forever. It was almost like the defining moment of her life. Despite the fact that they’d slept together before, this was different. This was their beginning. This was love and devotion and acceptance. This was everything. She actually felt tears brimming in her eyes as he sat them up, holding her tightly and pressing a long line of loving kisses down her neck and shoulders as they moved slowly together. His hand slid up to her cheek and through her hair as he looked up at her and their lips met again. “I love you, Damon,” she breathed out against his lips. 

Damon was surprised how hard those words hit him right now. He’d heard that from a hundred women in a hundred different ways during sex, but this one was so much more. This one he believed…no /knew/ beyond a shadow of a doubt was real. “I love you, Elena,” he whispered back, kissing her again and blinking the tears from his eyes. She was his. Really and truly his. For the rest of forever. He turned and laid them down, managing to not break their rhythm as he moved over top of her, hands and lips venerating everything they could reach of each other in particular order. Just moving as the moment took them. After a long while they spilled over together, reverently calling each other’s name.


	29. Chapter 29

It was a long moment before either of them moved and when Damon rolled to the side, Elena rolled with him, feeling like she might just die if she lost contact with him. He apparently felt the same, because his arms wrapped tightly around her, pulling her close and burying his face in her hair. “It almost feels like this entire day has been nothing but a dream,” he whispered softly. “And I can’t help but be afraid that it’s gonna end,” he admitted.

“I know how you feel,” Elena said softly, leaning up for a loving kiss as she reached up to caress his cheek. “But this is real and it’s never going to end. I love you, Damon. Forever.” 

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers, drinking in her presence and her words as he breathed out, “I will love you until I take my last breath on this earth.” 

“So will I,” she promised, wondering how she ever got this lucky and honestly a little afraid of the intensity of their feelings, but the good kind of afraid. She had no idea what to expect from life with him, but in this moment she knew that she would never want anything more. 

“Can I ask you a question?” he said hesitantly.

“Always,” she assured him, running her hand through his hair as he opened her eyes and met hers. 

“When did you fall in love with me? When did things change for you?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer. 

Elena smiled at the memory as she told him, “The day of the Miss Mystic Falls pageant. The moment you took me in your arms as we danced, there was no place I would rather be.” 

Damon smiled brightly and leaned forward for a quick kiss. “It was the same day for me,” he told her. “But a few minutes before. As you were coming down those stairs there wasn’t a force in this world that was going to stop me from being there at the bottom to meet you.” He hesitated for a minute before asking a question he was sure that he didn’t want the answer to, but his mind wouldn’t let him avoid it. “If I had told you then…how I felt…” he let it hang, knowing that she would get it. 

“I wasn’t ready for you yet,” she said apologetically. “I was still trying to hold on to the past.” She studiously avoided names despite the fact that they both knew what she was talking about. “The moment I knew that you were it for me…that it would always be you…was the first time you kissed me for real. From that moment on, all it would have taken was a word from you.” 

“But you stayed with Stefan anyway,” the unspoken rule was broken.

“Because you pushed me away and I was hurt. I thought if you didn’t want me at least I wouldn’t have to be alone. I was in the process of getting over that and getting ready to make that break when all hell broke loose,” she admitted. “I know that it wasn’t the best way to handle things. That none of this has been the best way to handle things, but…”

“Shh,” Damon said as he kissed her softly. “That part has already been forgiven. It’s in the past.”

Elena closed her eyes at the wash of relief that accompanied the spoken forgiveness. If it felt that way for her she wondered if he would need the same. “And in case you need to hear it, I forgive you too. For everything you’ve done. Whether I know about it or not. I forgive you.” 

Damon’s breath hitched as tears sprung to his eyes again and he hugged her tightly to him. “Thank you,” he whispered. For the first time, he actually felt like he could really make a fresh start. A whole new life. One with her by his side. Once he had recovered, he said, “How about we have some liquid lunch before going downstairs for some real food?” 

Elena chuckled and bared her neck for him, smiling when even now, he lathered the area in kisses before sinking his teeth in. She hadn’t thought that she had any more in her, but the wash of lust was just as strong as ever, but this time she could feel the overpowering love beneath it. She barely felt it as Damon rolled her to her back again, but she definitely felt him thrust into her and she gave a choked moan as her back arched. It seemed like both an eternity and barely a moment before his fangs retracted and she flipped him over as he pulled a cut on his neck. She gave another moan at the first pull of his blood. Now that she knew why she craved it so much, it tasted even better. It tasted like an eternity of happiness. It tasted like the love that consumed her. It tasted like Damon. 

By the time they made it back downstairs it was mid-afternoon and too late for lunch, but Damon started cooking an early dinner for them. “I didn’t realize you could cook,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his middle and rested her head between his shoulder blades.

“I’m no master chef like my brother, but I get by,” Damon chuckled. 

“It’s still better than me,” she pointed out amusedly. 

“Well you have forever to get better if that’s what you want,” Damon assured her. “But I don’t mind if you don’t.” 

“I’m not sure yet,” she told him. If he minded then she would do her best. “I have a lot of other things I’d rather learn first, but forever is a long time and I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually.”

“Whenever you want, ‘Lena,” he said as he turned in her arms for a kiss. 

She decided to go sit down and stay out of his way while he cooked and it wasn’t long before Stefan walked into the kitchen and took a deep breath before he told them both, “Can we talk?” 

“Of course,” Elena said, motioning him to sit and even Damon nodded from his position by the stove. 

Even from his room Stefan had been able to hear their conversation as she explained what she was reading about their bond, though he’d left the house completely when they went upstairs. Privacy was never anything but an illusion with vampires around, and he’d heard more from his brother’s room than any human could bear, but he just couldn’t stomach that one. He’d spent most of the day driving around thinking and coming to terms with things. “First, I want to say that I don’t blame either of you for falling in love. You’re soulmates and with the way your blood was apparently calling to each other, I can’t really blame you for that either. But hiding it from me…going behind my back…cheating on me…that’s different.”

“I know,” Elena said sadly. “But you should know that it wasn’t Damon’s fault. I’m the one who asked him to keep it a secret and that was just as wrong of me as what I did to you. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I /am/ sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“But you did,” Stefan said seriously. “Both of you did. Not that I expected anything better of you, Damon, but Elena…” he trailed off. 

Elena winced as it brought back memories of the night all this started. The first taste she’d had of Damon’s blood and he’d said something similar. “You know…I don’t think either of you realize how much pressure it is being thought of as perfect. Being the person that people /expect/ to always do the right thing and make the best decisions for everyone. I’m /not/ perfect. I’m just as screwed up and flawed as everyone else.” 

Damon huffed a laugh at her indignance. It was true that he’d thought of her that way for a while, but that was before their ‘illicit affair’ started. “I know. And figuring that out just made me love you even more,” he told her. 

Stefan sighed. “And I get that now too. I think so much of our relationship was me putting you on a pedestal that you couldn’t help but fall from. And that’s what I’m saying…while you may have made the biggest mistakes, I’m not completely innocent in this mess either. For that and other reasons. Which is why…if it would make you two more comfortable, I can move away. Let you have the space and privacy to figure out your lives.”

“Stefan, no,” Elena shook her head, not noticing Damon’s wince. “Look, I still want to be your friend and we’re kinda family anyway. Just because I’m not ‘in’ love with you anymore doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. I would never want to run you away from your home and friends and life. Not for my sake.” Damon relaxed quite a bit at the rest of her speech, and even found himself understanding her position.

Stefan had almost expected something like that from her, but he had expected Damon to disagree and all but kick him out the door. When he didn’t, Stefan had another decision to make and even a little hope for the first time since they’d turned. “Okay, I’ll stay on one condition,” he said as he looked at Damon.

“What condition is that?” Damon asked realizing that it was going to be something for him judging by his brother’s look. 

“You have to drop this whole eternity of misery crap and actually /be/ my brother again,” Stefan said sternly and with more than a little hope. 

Damon tilted his head in thought. He had promised Stefan an eternity of misery because that’s what Stefan had given him, but now that he was staring down the barrel of an eternity of happiness, he guessed it was only fair that he allow his brother the same. “I can do that. I can’t promise everything will be perfect overnight…”

“But we’ll get there,” Stefan added. “As long as you’re willing to try.” 

“I am,” Damon nodded and when Stefan came over and held out his hand, Damon took it amusedly before taking the bigger step and pulling his brother in for a one-armed hug, clapping him on the back before stepping away. “Now. Are you joining us for dinner?”


End file.
